The Terror of Tiny Town

Ok, so when I voted I gave it a low score, but that was cause Terror of Tiny Town has very little cinematic merit. But put all that aside and wind your sense of humour down a couple of notches and this movie is a "rootin, tootin, shootin" good time. I mean come on! They walk UNDER the saloon door! They ride ponies! It takes two midgets to play the bass! The bartender can't seem to chug his beer without outbursts of laughter! Plus- midgets fighting- funny! Add to that the fact that not a single one of the midgets can act and you've got 63 minutes of fun! Ok, so I realize that this movie is so politically incorrect that "little people" everywhere are either laughing themselves to death or up in arms. But that shouldn't stop us from enjoying an entirely midget western with multiple ear shattering musical numbers and the barest traces of a plot. But like I said before- midgets-Funny!

Okay, so I just watched this all-Midget (sorry, Little People) Western. Now, while I laughed at some of the way their sizes were exploited like when one fell carrying some boxes that blocked his face or when a townsperson drank a giant glass of beer (I think Jerry Maren played the latter by the way), overall I don't think this deserves the moniker of one of "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time" as implied in the book of that name. In fact, for the most part I was quite excited at the way the whole thing was filmed and liked many of the performances especially Billy Curtis as the Hero, Buck Lawson, and "Little Billy" Rhodes as the Villain, Bat Haines. They have a great fight scene at the climax. Yvonne Moray as the Heroine, Nancy Preston, and Nita Krabs as the Dance Hall Girl, Nita, who loves Bat are also good in their roles. And then there's Charles Becker as the Comic Relief, Otto the Cook, who has a pretty intentionally funny scene with a duck he's trying to kill as he tries to sweet talk him. The singing is wonderful, too, though hearing an obviously taller male voice coming out of Curtis' mouth was pretty strange especially in contrast to Ms. Murray's natural warbling voice after that. By the way, the only actual tall person that appears is in the beginning when an announcer steps from behind the curtain to introduce the Hero and Villain (with the requisite "boos" and "hiss"!) before the opening credits. So on that note, I'd recommend The Terror of Tiny Town to anyone who likes a good-old fashioned musical western starring talented little people.

Well, I've been curious about this movie for years and now I've finally seen it: "The Terror of Tiny Town" (1938), a Western/musical with an all-dwarf cast! In many respects it's just a typical Western-- dashing hero attempts to save/woo gorgeous gal and fight off cattle rustlers at the same time (one such rustler tries to frame the hero for murder). The film starts with an average-sized man introducing the diminiutive stars; including the hero, "Buck Lawson" (played by Billy Curtis, who has been in several movies and even has a walk-on in "the Incredible Shrinking Man".)

"Tiny Town" is populated entirely by little people(or "midgets" as some have called them). They ride ponies instead of horses, but everything in town seems scaled for average sized people. Thus the image of cowboys sauntering UNDER half-doors into saloons! To be honest I think SOME of the "dwarf" actors were actually average-sized children. In one scene, a barbershop quartet sings and a "dwarf" in a chair sings along in a much deeper voice than you'd expect. That "dwarf" looks more like an average-sized little boy in reality.

But then more than a few of the (adult) little people in the cast look like kids (but aren't)-- not just height-wise but they also have very-young-looking faces. You almost think it's a film of kids playing adults (ever see "Bugsy Malone"?) but they are indeed dwarfs.

You get the typical elements of an "oater" (Western), from shoot-em-ups to a seductive female singer in a saloon; some very bad puns ("smallpox", "half-pint"); a hero-and-girl duet that will conjure up images of Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald (all together now: "when I'm calling you-u-u-u"--though to be honest, the songs in "Tiny Town" are VERY forgettable!)...a dwarf drinking a huge beer stein, and a duel in a shack where dynamite is about to go off!

So is it great or horrible? Kind of in between; unusual enough (in that it has an all-dwarf cast) to see at least once, but cliched dialogue, weak songs, etc....still, now at least I can say I've seen The Terror of Tiny Town!

(PS--I must add that in many respects the film is the type that exploits little-person actors for their size instead of whatever other talents they may have. How many dwarf actors out there go to a casting call and immediately are told, "ah! We'll make you the leprechaun...the tiny space alien...one of Santa's elves..." etc. instead of more substantial roles... )

This film is a genuine novelty. The film has been put together as a straightforward B-Western as produced in the late 1930s. It appears to have been filmed on the same locations as dozens of other B-Westerns, with a stock, wall-to-wall music score. The difference is when you see and hear the players. This takes a few minutes to get used to, but once you are into it, you start to get caught up in the story and don't even notice the fact that the entire cast is made up of "little people". The acting in this ranges from fair to good, and the direction is as good as in any Roy Rogers or Gene Autry opus. This is not a bad little film and well worth your time if you are in the mood for something different.

I watched this in preparation for Herzog's dwarf film. He requires some time in the wilderness.

In the early 30's there were some precode films that copied already established genres but with toddlers playing the roles. I commented on two: "War Babies" and "Runt Pages." Recently, I saw "Baby Geniuses," which borrowed heavily in spirit — but without the sex jokes.

This is also modeled in a way on those, but is schizophrenic.

It was the same year that "Wizard of Oz," used little people in a serious way to introduce the distorted magic of Oz. (This was before we could rely on Dr Suess.) Nearly all of these actors were in that scene, with its grueling shoot. The actual story is played almost perfectly straight. A standard script is used: cowboy romance, "Romeo and Juliette" family feud and romance, cattle rustling, corrupt sheriff, barroom moll... the whole works. These actors and the director take the movie seriously.

On the other hand, a different director managed the musical numbers. There are a half dozen, and the novelty of little people is played to the hilt, using some actual children I think where cuteness is required. The shift in stance is radical. You can see that distributor realized that they had a problem, so here is what they did:

At the beginning, an announcer comes on "stage" to announce that we would see a "novelty picture" with "midgets." A one of a kind, first ever, he effuses. But he is interrupted by the actor playing the hero, who assures him that the movie is not a novelty but a real film. Then he and the film's villain engage in a bit of scripted verbal slapping that someone thought was a successful synthesis of worlds.

Here's what interests me: mainstream movies have only a few seconds to work with the viewer to establish where what the world is they are entering and where they stand in it. It is critical to the success of a film that this is right. It is why genres are so strong film; there is no relief from the moving forward of the narrative. Big films today can do that by showing a synopsis of the whole movie in the long trailers we have. And title sequences have become extremely effective: an art in itself.

By here in 1938, they took those few precious minutes for this strange dialog.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.