Another movie I recently caught on TCM was 1958's "tom thumb" starring Russ Tamblyn as the pint-sized title character.
It's not a bad movie, although it seems pretty dated.
What struck me was that there seemed to be an unusually high number of the cast and crew that were connected to versions of "A Christmas Carol" and/or other projects of note.
The cast supporting American star Russ Tamblyn is mostly British, so maybe it's not too surprising.
Tom's parents are played by Bernard Miles and Jessie Matthews, who pop up here a lot.
Bernard Miles had that 1960 recording on which he played Scrooge, but his performance here reminds me more of his role as "Joe Gargery" in David Lean's 1946 version of "Great Expectations."
I don't think that Jessie Matthews ever appeared in a Dickens adaptation, but she did co-star with Barry MacKay in three movies in the 1930s, as I frequently point out!
"tom thumb" is 20 years later and Jessie's about 50, but she's still attractive. Her character gets a song and it sounds like Jessie singing, but some (all?) of it was apparently dubbed by future Lawrence Welk "Champagne Lady" Norma Zimmer.
The romantic leads are played by Alan Young and June Thorburn, who also have some interesting connections.
Alan Young, who kinda seems too old for this part, was, of course, the voice of Scrooge McDuck on the original album and animated short "Mickey's Christmas Carol."
And June Thorburn, a very lovely actress who tragically passed away in a plane crash at age 36, had a small role in the 1952 adaptation of "The Pickwick Papers," which also featured Barry MacKay!
"tom thumb" was directed by George Pal, who was famous for his Puppetoons shorts featuring stop-motion animation and Tom interacts with various toys in that style.
One of the toys is the Yawning Man who is voiced by Stan Freberg, who played a modern Scrooge on his brilliant Capitol Records single "Green Chri$tma$" from 1958!
That's three Scrooges!
Also of note is that a couple of songs from "tom thumb" were written by the team of Janice Torre and Fred Spielman, the talents behind "The Stingiest Man in Town" - pretty cool!
You know, I'd almost say I enjoyed making these connections more than I did the movie itself!
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