This version of the Mary Norton book has some superb casting, with Eddie Albert, Judith Anderson, Beatrice Straight, and Barnard Hughes, but my viewing suffered because the copy seemed pulled from a tape, with its 1970s-hued color design making the whole thing blurry and depressing.
What is this story about small people who live in an old house, and whose presence is a secret, safe to Miss Anderson, and orphaned Dennis Larsen, who discovers them?
Fantasy done right is a means of telling a story about the real world that's too uncomfortable to tell as a realistic tale; it handles its points symbolically, rather than mimetically. a better writer than I has pointed out that this is a reworking of Ann Frank's story, and once that is said, it all falls Into place. However, Walter Miller's direction of Jay Presson Allen's script is too workaday, and the parable gets lost in the oversized props, the obvious process photography, and the big-name actors. For a 1970s TV movie, it's a notable accomplishment. For a telling piece of fantasy, it's all about the sense of wonder, with nothing behind to bolster it.
