I just finished watching the 1960’s Pollyanna that introduced Hailey Mills to American Audiences. This was one of the two Disney live action movies that my family had as a kid so I have watched it like a million times. I still seem to like it all these years later.
For those of you who don’t know the story its about a girl, Pollyanna, who comes to live with her Aunt Polly Harrington in Harrington Town. Everyone in town seems to be afraid of Aunt Polly because she’s basically is the boss of the town. Not only is everyone afraid but a lot of people are miseraible either because they’re cankerous old women (a maid of Aunt Polly’s, Mrs. Snow who thinks she’s dying), they don’t like charity -Mr. Neely, and everyone hates Sundays’ “FIRE AND BRIMSTONE” speeches that the Reverend Ford gives every week because it gives them “Sour stomach”. When Pollyanna enters their lives that she gives the town joy and happiness. After the orphanage gets flooded the town stands together against Aunt Polly and they put on a bazaar for the town and everyone’s helping. Pollyanna goes to the bazaar despite her aunt’s wishes because she’s “part of the flag” and she gets the doll she always wanted but returning home results in tragedy because she falls from the roof and paralyzes her legs. She’s in a depression for a little awhile but Dr. Chillion, Aunt Polly’s old flame apparently gets the whole town together to “put some joy and happiness into Pollyanna’s life that she has put into theirs”. This scene kind of reminds me of an identical scene near the end of Song of the South movie when Jimmy is in bed himself and is depressed. The movie ends with Pollyanna and Aunt Polly on the train going to Baltimore to have Pollyanna have surgery on her weeks so she can walk again and the town gets a sub-title for it “The Glad town” after Pollyanna’s “Glad Game”
Its a great story about trying to find the glad in everything. It also teaches a message of “You have to look for the good in people to actually get it. Because if you only see bad that’s all you will see”. I like the movie because depending on when I saw it first (in the 1990s) -it might have been the first time I saw early 20th century (1900s) on actually live humans and not just animated humans and anthropic mice. It was also my introduction to Kevin “Moochie” Coracan who plays the orphan Jimmy Bean but I believe this was his last film with the Disney company after spending most of the 1950s with Disney.
Overall it was a lovely timeless Disney movie that if you haven’t seen it you really should go watch it and add it to your Disney Family Film Collection.
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