Darby O’Gill and the Little People was the first movie I ever saw twice in the theater. I was in first or second grade at the time (1978), and darned near soiled my shorts both times when the banshee came swooping into the doorway.
I sat down the other night and watched the DVD with my daughter Kizarvexilla, who is currently 9 (going on 19). As it turns out, my positive regard for the movie was not a mere trick of a faulty memory besotted with nostalgia – it’s a great film. Albert Sharpe is perfectly cast as the wily old Darby, a groundskeeper easing not-so-gracefully into retirement. Janet Munroe sparkles with enough charm to rekindle the crush I had on her years and years ago after one too many viewings of Swiss Family Robinson. And Shir Sean actually attempts a non-Scottish accent! The effects (most of them, anyway) still stand up to scrutiny 50 years later. The story is tightly spun and well put together in every way.
This thread is intended to be a general discussion on the subject of the movie, but I thought I’d kick it off with one point I’ve never quite understood: Just after Darby introduces Katy to Michael, he begins his (one would imagine inevitable) musings about his adventures with the leprechauns. As he plays a tune on his fiddle, he describes the Little People dancing about in the moonlight. “Well,” says Michael, “aren’t they the bold creatures?” It seems pretty clear from the context that Michael doesn’t believe Darby’s stories, but is being polite enough not to say so. So why does Katie shoot him an angry glare?
I haven’t seen the movie in decades, but it sounds like she was just telling Sean, “Don’t encourage the old man- I’ve had to listen to these silly stories my whole life, and I don’t want anyone to give them the idea that he’s being taken seriously.”
One of my favorite movies. I can even ignore all the California topiary pretending to be Irish, even though it does look to have been filmed during a drought!
I think he was making it clear (to Katie) that he didn’t believe Darby and inviting her in on the joke. Katie didn’t appreciate that Michael was making fun of her Dad.
Good god, that damn banshee scared the living CRAP out of me as a kid! This is literally the only Disney movie I ever remember screaming and crying and having a fit in the middle of.
I’ve only seen it once, and that as an adult. But the pre-CGI effects were pretty good, and the banshee is rivaled only by flying monkeys and/or dementors, when it comes to scariness.
The legend says that a 4th wish made of a leprechaun negates the legitimate 3. So when King Brian tricks Darby into making that 4th wish, it negated all the other wishes, including the wish that Darby be allowed to go with the death coach. I assume since Katie’s fever broke before the 4th wish was made, she’s cheated the banshee for now. So with the 4th wish, everything is fine again.
I was no different than most kids in first seeing this film, hearing that noise and seeing that Banshee creeped me right out…
Where I did differ though was in living in rural Ireland, with all the forts and ruins and all the windy rainy nights that this entails. I can vividly remember having some reason to walk through some fields one dark winters night, coming across a fort on a neighbours farmland.
I think it took me about an hour to get home, turning this way and that at every noise in the darkness, trying to work up the courage to even go near those trees. It is amazing the internal struggles a child can go through, afraid of imagined ghosts in the dark, yet still self aware enough that I couldnt turn back because I would be told to wise up. Scared witless, and all because of that wailing noise that is all too common on a dark night in Ireland.
Early in the film, Darby tells of a time that he caught the king of the leprechauns and got 3 wishes… but then the king tricked him into making a 4th wish, which invalidated all of them. So, no pot of gold for Darby.
There was a rhyme to the effect that, “I’ll grant 3 wishes, great and small. But make a 4th, and you lose them all.”
I have the DVD. The featurette goes into the S/FX, and it was fascinating to see. As a sometime-filmmaker I tried to imagine myself setting up the shots.
Well, then…
*Sit down by the fire and I’ll tell you a story
To send you away to your bed
Of the things you hear creeping
When everyone’s sleeping
And you wish you were out here instead
It isn’t the mice in the wall
It isn’t the wind in the well
But each night they march
Out of that hole in the wall
Passing through on their way
Out of hell…*
I remember this film. That is, I remember that damn banshee. To be even more precise, I remember the fear of that damn banshee. when conversation turns to scary monsters from childhood, I mention the banshee, even though there’s a part of my brain that sreams, “Don’t talk about the banshee!”
What did the banshee look like, people ask.
Well, it was sort of… I don’t know exactly. But it was scary.
What did the banshee do, people ask.
I’m not sure. I think it floated in front of some sort of bridge and combed its hair.Sounds terrifying, people say, rolling their eyes.
For years it has been this vague object of dread. Now, thanks to YouTube, I can give form to it, in a controlled situation, and thereby hope to conquer it…
OK, that wasn’t so bad. Well done scene, nice creepy effect, I can certainly see how this could leave an impression on a small child. Good thing I never figured out thathurling flaming objects at it would make it go away.
I should check out the “death coach” clip. I don’t remember that one.Holy crap, it’s the banshee!Damnit! I was tricked! I wasn’t expecting that at all.
