The Terror of Tiny Town

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.

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.

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!

THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN enjoys something of a cult reputation as one of the "worst films ever made" and is notorious for being a musical western enacted solely by dwarf actors (or midgets, as they're credited in the opening titles). However, this isn't that bad at all; it comes across as a distinctly average but mildly enjoyable western with the added novelty of having the entire cast populated by dwarf actors.

It's fair to say that the acting isn't a strong point here, but the dwarfs certainly are enthusiastic performers and you can't fault their efforts in that respect. The musical scenes fare less well due to the high pitched nature of the voices, but the cattle rustling plot is more interesting and there's even a little romance to be enjoyed here. THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN is a unique film, yes, but in many ways it's all rather predictable and ordinary for the era. There are far, far worse films out there too.

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.