Darby O'Gill and the Little People
MEMORIES:
PHOTOS:
Cast:
Katie...Janet Munro
Michael McBride...Sean Connery
King Brian...Jimmy O'Dea
Pony Sugrue...Kieron Moore
Sheelah...Estelle Winwood
Lord Fitzpatrick...Walter Fitzgerald
Father Murphy...Denis O'Dea
Tom Kerrigan...J.G. Devlin
Phadrig Oge...Jack MacGowran
Paddy Scanlon...Farrell Pelly
Molly Malloy...Nora O'Mahoney
Studio:
Release History:
Disney spent twenty years mulling over, and then finally making, its film adaptation of H.T. Kavanagh’s Darby O’Gill stories. With an intriguing tale to tell, and wonderful special effects, the movie - a real labor of love for Walt Disney - was released in 1959.
Darby O’Gill’s village knows the old estate caretaker as a fine fiddler and storyteller. Devastated by being replaced, he sets out for home to tell the sad news to his daughter, Katie. Alas, on the way he tumbles down a well and ends up in the land of the Leprechauns where King Brian of Knocknasheega holds sway.
The king doesn’t want to let Darby ever return to the surface world, but Darby manages to trick his little royal highness into the topworld. This earns Darby three wishes – we’re talking Leprechauns, after all – and, although King Brian tricks Darby out of two of them, our hero succeeds in using the third to lock in a happy marriage for Katie and the handsome new caretaker. But complications arise when Death arrives on the scene looking to claim a soul. Both Darby and the King are forced to act nobly in the face of the dilemma arising from the Reaper’s demand.
Walt Disney put a lot of time and effort into making this screen gem a believable and fully realized fairy tale. There was even a title at the start dedicating the movie “to King Brian of Knocknasheega and his leprechauns, whose gracious cooperation made this picture possible.” But the careful detail and cleverness, the charming story, and the special effects didn’t add up to a big box office success. In the ensuing decades, however, interest in Darby O’Gill and the Little People has picked up, with curious movie fans, sometimes interested in seeing the pre-James Bond Sean Connery, checking out the little people of Disney’s long-brewing vision.
