Jack and the Beanstalk (1970)
** (out of 4)
Jack (Mitchell Poulos) is sent to town to sell the family cow but Honest John (Chris Brooks) convinces him to trade it for some magic beans. Jack blindly does this but sure enough a magical beanstalk grows where Jack is able to climb it and go up against a giant.
Barry Mahon made a number of children's movies towards the end of his career. All of this was done after years of making sexploitation and exploitation picture but I must say that this one here is decent enough as long as you don't go into it expecting anything other than low-budget camp.
I'm going to guess that this movie was shot for a couple thousand dollars because the special effects are certainly bad and all the scenes dealing with the "small" Jack going up against the "large" giant are really obviously done. The film was shot on a few sets and it really looks like they just re-enacted a play that might have been done at the amusement park.
As I said, no one should be going into this film expecting a "good" movie. The performances are what you'd expect to see at an amusement park and there's no question that not much is good on the technical side of things. JACK AND THE BEANSTALK thankfully runs just 63- minutes so it never overstays its welcome.
