The Sand Castle

The Sand Castle is a charming fantasy film which appeared briefly and then disappeared, apparently forever.

A working mom deposits her young son and his sister on a beach as she goes off to work one morning. The kids have a morning of fun with the inhabitants of the beach, including a group of nuns in traditional habits, playing softball.

The kids fall asleep and the subsequent color dream sequence (the film begins and ends monochrome) is a stunning animation using a Victorian-style paper theater in which many of the real-life beach folk appear as inventive characatures.

The performances are all more than adequate for the material, but it is the Wizard-of-Oz-like central conceit that makes the charm of the film.

I only know of this picture being shown at the Nob Hill Theater (In 1961, a rear-projection art house in the basement of the S.F. Fairmont Hotel--not the present porn palace on Bush St.) briefly in the year of its release.

I have been able to find an LP copy of Alec Wilder's charming original score, executed by a relatively small ensemble. Otherwise, the picture just seems to have vanished.

I have been told that it is tied up in copyright disputes. I do hope it has not vanished and will resurface in some format.