I've always remembered Tom Lowell as Canoe, Hayley Mills beatnik boyfriend in That Darn Cat, since I saw that movie in the auditorium back in school in the seventies.
Later, I would learn he was the orderly that Cornelius killed in Escape from Planet of the Apes. I was puzzled as to how he became reduced to such a bit part, then seemed to vanish from sight. He never appeared on Love Boat or Fantasy Island, for crying out loud!
Lo and behold, I come across a movie called The Gnomemobile in the movie store. And it had Tom Lowell in it.
So I buy it. With Lowell as Jasper the gnome, the children from Mary Poppins (which, oddly enough was how they were credited) and Walter Brennan for some unexplained reason in a dual role, this movie could have been on the level of Mary Poppins, Sound of Music, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Willie Wonka.
So what went wrong? Over half the movie is spent on trying to get Grandpa out of the nuthouse.
With a cast involving Maudie PIckett, Ellen Corby, Frank Cady, Richard Deacon and Alby Moore, they all would have stood out well had the movie made them gnomes along with Ed Wynn.
So who was supposed to want to see this movie? If girls were supposed to think Lowell was cute, why does he sit out so much of the movie. He only gets one closeup toward the end as well.
So were small children supposed to like the Mary Poppins children?
Was Grandpa gnome or doodene supposed to be comically likable? Grandpa gnome maybe, but like Lowell, he sat out the majority of the movie.
Once the movie got back to the woods, those beautiful woods, and we see Jasper trying to find a bride, the movie gets cute again.
Even the talking animals, the birds, the owl and the raccoon, were all nice to see, but they aren't seen over five minutes at the beginning, then they are gone.
Effects-wise, especially in regards to the double filming, this was all done very well.
I must have caught some of this decades ago on the Wonderful World of Disney, as it all came back to me in strange shadowy flashbacks.
Still it could have worked, even with gnomes singing that silly song instead of grandpa doodene. Ellen Corby, Frank Cady and Alby Moore would have been hysterical singing that thing.
