ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

Tommy Kirk ("Village of the Giants") and Annette Funicello star in this perfect example of the kind of movie which almost ruined the Disney studios and eventually required them to establish Touchstone Pictures as an alternate name so that people wouldn't avoid their films.

This one is the story of an airheaded "genius" named Merlin Jones who creates a mind-reading device by gluing elect??ronic components onto a football helmet. When he wears the klutzy gizmo, he can hear echoed voice-overs of silly dialogue from the other characters. He and girlfriend Annette and a chimp named Stanley use the device to uncover the crooked activities of a judge.

Unfortunately the film made money and "inspired" a sequel ("Monkey's Uncle"). Directed by Robert Stevenson, who has certainly done better things.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Bud Brewster]

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If you haven't enjoyed this comedy / sci-fi romp, here's the jazzy title theme (with Annette Funicello). But the trailer doesn't seem to be on YouTube.

Enjoy!
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_____ The Misadventures of Merlin Jones - theme


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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

The Disney Films, Leonard Maltin.

More than once Disney had taken television shows and released them to theaters; the transference was usually undetectable, such was he quality of the project. The Misadventures of Merlin Jones marked the first time a feature film from the studio looked as if it belonged on television!

The Misadventures of Merlin Jones is an inexpensive film, with little or no action, broken evenly into two sections that look suspiciously like divisions between segments of the Disney TV hour.

If the plot elements of Merlin Jones sound a bit thin for a feature film, that's just because they are. Add to this the stupidest collection of characters ever devised for one film, and you have the ingredients for this Disney package. So little of consequence happens in Merlin Jones that it's difficult to conceive of it being planned as a feature film.

Virtually the whole film takes place indoors, or on studio interiors, with only one elaborate prop (Merlin's electronic headgear).

The animated opening titles, using paper cutouts, probably took more time and imagination to work out than the rest of the film.

Yet the credits match those of any top-drawer Disney feature. Certainly director Robert Stevenson was getting the most choice assignments from the studio at this time. The whole project is difficult to understand. As for the players, there is little to criticize when one considers the level of writing in the script.

The film grossed $4 million in its domestic release, not bad for a picture that probably cost less to make than any other Disney film in the past year. It did well enough to warrant a sequel, if that can be imagined, and even a reissue in 1972, proving once again the unpredictability of the moviegoing masses, especially where Disney is concerned.

Thoughts: I enjoyed the movie at the time it was released, then again, I was eleven years old. Even took an old football helmet and attached junk to it in order to recreate Merlin's helmet. Rode around my neighborhood on my bike with it on top of my head. I was fearless! I was eleven.

[scotpens]

[Pow]

Wikipedia: Although the film credits Tom & Helen August as its writers, this was a pseudonym for Alfred Lewis Levitt & Helen Levitt. They were blacklisted writers in Hollywood.