Soak in Some Irish Disney Magic With Darby O'Gill and the Little People

March is usually my big month for watching Irish movies, but when it occurred to me that I had never reviewed Darby O’Gill and the Little People, I decided I needed to watch that 1959 classic again as a part of my autumn Disney immersion. This largely comedic movie written by Lawrence Watkin and based on the stories of H. T. Kavanagh was directed by Robert Stevenson, the man at the helm of many of Disney’s most notable movies, including Mary Poppins.

It’s a movie in which Walt Disney took special interest; the DVD includes a nearly hour-long featurette in which he journeys to Ireland to meet Darby O’Gill and make the acquaintance of Brian, the leprechaun king, who agrees to participate in the filming and get the rest of the wee folk involved as well. The beginning of the movie even includes a special acknowledgment from Walt thanking Brian for his cooperation, without which the movie would not have been possible. That, coupled with the excellent use of forced perspective that would come to be such an integral part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy decades later, gives the movie a charming air of authenticity. It really seems as though those leprechauns could be the real deal.

This movie is mostly a battle of wills between Darby (Albert Sharpe), a crusty old codger who has just (rather rightfully) been forced into retirement, and King Brian (Jimmy O’Dea), the leprechaun monarch. Both men are clever, and each has a healthy respect for the other, even as they plot ways to outwit each other. Darby is always after the three wishes that King Brian must grant if he is captured, but the wily king has no shortage of loopholes to keep his old friend from cashing in. On the other hand, they’ve developed such a rapport that Brian tries to retire Darby to the leprechaun kingdom, while the old man just wants to get home to his daughter and see her happily married off. Observing these two is like watching an expert tennis match, and it’s a thrill to see what devilish trickery will come to the forefront next.

While the twinkly-eyed Sharpe, the perfect picture of an old Irish pub denizen, is really the star of the show here, O’Dea puts in a mostly-dignified performance as the eternally middle-aged king, and dozens of uncredited actors and actresses make up the thriving population of leprechauns. While not all of the effects in this movie are terribly sophisticated – the banshee, for instance, looks pretty hokey to me, yet it still manages to be utterly terrifying – they really pull off the illusion of tininess remarkably well. These magical beings inhabit a glittery realm unseen by human eyes, and one can’t help thinking that Darby would at least want to stay and feast his eyes and ears on all its glory for a while before concocting a plan to escape.

Naturally, great folk music is in abundance, particularly since Darby plays a mean fiddle. I wouldn’t call this a musical, but there is one song that we hear a couple of times, and it’s noteworthy because it is sung by Sean Connery in one of his earliest film roles. Connery plays Michael McBride, a handsome young man who has come to take over Darby’s caretaker duties. In the process, he falls for Darby’s spirited daughter Katie (Janet Munro), who seems to think he‘s pretty easy on the eyes but sees him as a threat to her father’s happiness. While these four are the main characters, various pub regulars are significant as well, particularly the parish priest, who likes Darby but doesn’t entirely approve of his obsession with ancient superstitions, and Pony, an arrogant Gaston-like golden boy whose witchy mother is desperate to hook him up with Katie. The pub scenes actually made me think a lot of Beauty and the Beast, but Darby is more respected than Maurice and Pony is not as widely admired as Gaston.

Despite the fact that the Irish side of my family has been in America for generations, I strongly identify with my Irish heritage, and it tickled me immensely to hear Katie reference the McCartys as neighbors toward the end of the movie. I got a thrill again during I Captured the King of the Leprechauns when Pat O’Brien mentions the McCartys to Walt Disney as having a family banshee. This little black-and-white globe-trotting adventure would be a delight to watch without the name connection; Walt just looks like he’s having such fun, and the twinkle in his eye is quite as pronounced as the one in Sharpe’s. The other features are worth a look as well, discussing the making and reception of the movie. I found it especially interesting to hear Connery discuss the impact the film had on his career.

While Darby O’Gill and the Little People is ideal for St. Patrick’s Day viewing, there’s no reason to wait until March to pop this in the DVD player. If Irish blood runs in your veins or you’ve ever caught yourself wishing it did, this is a wonderful marriage of Disney magic and Irish enchantment.