At a recent talk I gave at the Veritas Press Teacher Training Conference, some of the participants asked questions about watching movies, and what some recommended films might be. We talked about how movie-watching can be a part of a family storytelling culture. My good wife has a website over at This Parenting Adventure, and on Fridays, she posts a movie review, covering family favorites we've collected over the years. And for good reason, for Fridays have been designated (happily, if not too originally) Family Movie Night in the Newsom household. So I thought I would draw from her reviews, and give the Fatherly perspective, particularly as these films relate to the idea of building a family culture of storytelling, which, as will be known to any of you who have read my books, is a major point of emphasis for me.
Angela recently reviewed Darby O'Gill and the Little People. This was a film produced by Disney in (if memory serves) 1959. One of a string of successful (and mostly excellent) live action films that had begun with Treasure Island, Darby O’Gill is possibly the best thing old Walt ever put on film. From an excellent script to outstanding comic performances, to ground-breaking special effects (forty years later, Peter Jackson borrowed the forced perspective techniques used in Darby for his Lord of the Rings trilogy), this film has it all. It’s clever, hilarious, even a bit scary in places. The movie is based on the book by Hermione Kavanagh, but Disney’s story is original (though drawing heavily from the characters, lore, and language of the book); whereas the book tells tales of a young Darby, the film picks up with Darby as an old man.
Darby (masterfully played by Albert Sharpe) has a long history of interaction with “the Little People,” better known as Leprechauns. The film tells the story of Darby’s friendly battles of wits with Brian O’Connor, King of the Leprechauns (just as masterfully played by Jimmy O’Dea). The interaction between these two is what makes the film. I won’t go deeper than that into the story: I’d rather let you experience it for yourself, while I spend the time I have talking about some of the more interesting elements, at least in the opinion of your humble correspondent.
First, there is a twist in the portrayal of a basic belief in “magic” or the supernatural, versus rank unbelief. The cliché is well-known: young people believe in magic, but once they grow old, they lose that belief. It’s been used in hundreds of books and movies. But Darby O’Gill stands the cliché on its head: here, it is the youth who mock their believing elders. The idea of “growing up” into a naturalistic unbelief is one the great G. K. Chesterton knew well; he dealt with it effectively, in his typical rapier-writing:
WHEN the business man rebukes the idealism of his office-boy, it is commonly in some such speech as this: "Ah, yes, when one is young, one has these ideals in the abstract and these castles in the air; but in middle age they all break up like clouds, and one comes down to a belief in practical politics, to using the machinery one has and getting on with the world as it is." Thus, at least, venerable and philanthropic old men now in their honoured graves used to talk to me when I was a boy. But since then I have grown up and have discovered that these philanthropic old men were telling lies. What has really happened is exactly the opposite of what they said would happen. They said that I should lose my ideals and begin to believe in the methods of practical politicians. Now, I have not lost my ideals in the least; my faith in fundamentals is exactly what it always was. What I have lost is my old childlike faith in practical politics. I am still as much concerned as ever about the Battle of Armageddon; but I am not so much concerned about the General Election. As a babe I leapt up on my mother's knee at the mere mention of it. No; the vision is always solid and reliable. The vision is always a fact. It is the reality that is often a fraud…My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbroken certainty, I learnt in the nursery…The things I believed most then, the things I believe most now, are the things called fairy tales. They seem to me to be the entirely reasonable things. They are not fantasies: compared with them other things are fantastic.
G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
Just so in the Chestertonian Darby O’Gill. While the young laugh and jeer at those who believe in the Little People, the old grimly nod, knowing that there is more to this world than meets the eye.
Another striking feature of the story is the strong influence of the Church. Fairies and humans alike fear to take on the noble Father Murphy. Darby threatens King Brian that he will “have Father Murphy curse you with a blessing” that will shrivel up the little monarch. And later, Pony Sugrue, the town bully, is obstinate in pushing his way around in the local tavern, until the proprietor says, “I’ll have Father Murphy forbid you to come here at all,” on which the big fellow backs down. Do any of us even remember a time when the Church had the strength to keep the peace, whether among stubborn parishioners or stubborn kings? Look for that day to come again, as it surely will. Maybe not until our children (or grandchildren) are old and gray, but if we tell them stories of the days when it was true, they’ll be more ready for it.
More importantly, they will want it. Of course, in our day, far too many Christians don’t want the Church to have such social influence. This is a major problem, and beyond my scope in this article. But we’ll have to return to it some time.
Finally, the movie is just plain funny. It’s worth the price just for the humor. One of my favorite bits is when Darby and King Brian engage in singing “The Wishing Song,” while enjoying a cup or twelve of poteen (whiskey). The idea of the song is to make it up as you go along, following a standard format of a rhyming couplet that begins with, “Oh, I wish…” Darby, for example, begins with,
I wish I had time to sing you a song,
But once I get started, I sing all night long.
Not so hot, of course, but they get better through the eighty or so verses (not all shown on film!) that the two rivals make up during the night. King Brian comes up with some of the best, including this one:
Oh, I wish all barmaids were like Mary McClusky:
When she serves you a drink, well, she serves you good whuskey.
But Darby comes up with a few zingers of his own:
Oh, I wish all the gentry were like our King Brian:
If he can’t beat you drinkin’, he’ll fall down a-tryin’.
For all its strengths, there’s an issue or two that need addressing with children: there’s a bit of superstition that gets mixed in with the Christian thinking (wearing holy medals to protect against witches, and such). The best definition of superstition I ever heard (and the one my kids know) was from Doug Jones’ great children’s novel, Scottish Seas: “believing that magic, and not Christ, rules the world.” Teach that definition to your kids, and they will know how to recognize superstition when they see it.
Also, the scenes with the banshee (the spirit of death) can be a bit intense for younger viewers, so judge this based on what you know of your own kids. Ours were a bit younger when they first saw it, and were a little scared; but they got over it pretty quickly.
All in all, though, one of our top favorites. Five Stars to Darby O’Gill and the Little People.
