''Jack and the Beanstalk'' is a 1952 American

family Family (from la, familia) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). The purpose of the family is to maintain the well-being of its ...

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending (black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the ol ...

starring the comedy team of

Abbott and Costello Abbott may refer to: People *Abbott (surname) *Abbott Handerson Thayer (1849–1921), American painter and naturalist * Abbott and Costello, famous American vaudeville act Places Argentina * Abbott, Buenos Aires United States * Abbott, Arkansas ...

and featuring

Buddy Baer Jacob Henry "Buddy" Baer (June 11, 1915 – July 18, 1986) was an American boxer and later an actor with important parts in seventeen films, as well as roles on various television series in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1941, he came extremely cl ...

Dorothy Ford Dorothy Ford (April 4, 1922 – October 15, 2010) was an American actress and model active from the 1940s through the 1960s. She began her career as a model, largely owing to her height of and a 38-26-38-and-a-half figure. She went on to be ...

and Barbara Brown. It is a comic retelling of the "

Jack and the Beanstalk "Jack and the Beanstalk" is an English fairy tale. It appeared as "The Story of Jack Spriggins and the Enchanted Bean" in 1734 4th edition On Commons and as Benjamin Tabart's moralized "The History of Jack and the Bean-Stalk" in 1807. Henry Cole ...

" fairy tale, produced by Abbott and Costello and distributed by

Warner Bros. Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (commonly known as Warner Bros. or abbreviated as WB) is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. D ...

Plot

Eloise Larkin and her fiancé Arthur's plans to attend the rehearsal of a play are jeopardized because no one will babysit her obnoxious kid brother Donald. Eloise phones the Cosman Employment Agency, where Mr. Dinkle and Jack just happen to be seeking work. Jack flirts with Cosman employee Polly, but he is thwarted by the arrival of her boyfriend, a towering police officer. Polly sends Dinkle and Jack to babysit, but an attempt to lull the boy to sleep by reading the fairy tale ''

'' (Jack's "favorite novel") aloud fails when Jack stumbles over the larger words. Bemused by Jack, Donald reads the story instead — a role-reversal made complete when Jack falls asleep as Donald reads. In his slumber, Jack dreams that he is the young Jack of the fairy tale. In his dream, Jack learns that a Giant, who lives in a castle in the sky, has taken all of the kingdom's food as well as the crown jewels. The dire situation obliges the kingdom's princess to marry a prince from a neighboring kingdom whom she has never met. Jack must also make sacrifices. His mother sends him to sell the last family possession, their beloved cow "Henry", to the local butcher, Mr. Dinklepuss. Along the way Jack meets the prince, disguised as a

troubador A troubadour (, ; oc, trobador ) was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100–1350). Since the word ''troubadour'' is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a ''trobairit ...

, who is kidnapped by the Giant soon afterward. The unscrupulous Dinklepuss pays Jack five "magic" beans for the cow. Upon returning home, Jack learns that the Giant has also kidnapped the princess and Henry. Jack's mother, exasperated over the beans, tells Jack to plant them and a gigantic beanstalk grows overnight. He decides to climb the beanstalk to rescue everyone from the Giant's clutches and retrieve "Nellie", the golden-egg laying hen that the Giant previously stole from Jack's family. Upon learning of Nellie's existence, Dinklepuss joins Jack on the adventure. When they reach the top of the beanstalk Jack and Dinklepuss are captured by the Giant and imprisoned with the prince and princess. The princess falls for the troubador only to later learn this is the same prince she was betrothed. The Giant releases Dinklepuss and Jack from the dungeon in order to toil around his castle. They befriend his housekeeper, Polly, who helps them escape over the castle wall along with the royal prisoners, Nellie and some of the Giant's stolen gems (pilfered by the greedy Dinklepuss). They flee down the beanstalk with the Giant in pursuit. During the descent, Dinklepuss loses Nellie (who falls into the arms of Jack's mother) and then the gems, which rain down upon the impoverished townsfolk below. Once all reach the ground, Jack chops down the beanstalk, sending the Giant falling to his death. The villagers rejoice by dancing around the hole the Giant made from his fall. Just before being rewarded by the King for heroism, Jack is rudely awakened when Donald breaks a vase over Jack's head just as Eloise and Arthur return home from rehearsal. Jack's cries out, but receives a second blow to the head from Dinkle, which returns Jack to his dream state. After greeting Eloise and Arthur as their storybook counterparts, Jack dances off into the night with the bravado of "Jack the Giant-Killer".

Cast

Bud Abbott William Alexander "Bud" Abbott (October 2, 1897 – April 24, 1974) was an American comedian, actor and producer. He was best known as the straight man half of the comedy duo Abbott and Costello. Early life Abbott was born in Asbury Park, New ...

as Mr. Dinkle/Mr. Dinklepuss *

Lou Costello Louis Francis Cristillo (March 6, 1906 – March 3, 1959), professionally known as Lou Costello, was an American comedian, actor and producer. He was best known for his double act with straight man Bud Abbott and their routine "Who's on First?" ...

as Jack/Jack Strong *

as The Receptionist/Polly *

as Police Sergeant Riley/The Giant *

Shaye Cogan Shaye Cogan (September 20, 1923 – June 12, 2009) was an American singer and film actress who appeared in several popular movies in the early 1950s. Career She was born Helen J. Coggins, in Hudson, Massachusetts. She started her professio ...

as Eloise Larkin/The Princess *

David Stollery David John Stollery, III (born January 18, 1941 in Los Angeles, California) is a former American child actor and, as an adult, an industrial designer. He appeared in numerous Disney movies and television programs in the 1950s. He is best known for ...

as Donald Larkin * James Alexander as Arthur/The Prince * Barbara Brown as Mrs. Strong *

William Farnum William Farnum (July 4, 1876 – June 5, 1953) was an American actor. He was a star of American silent film cinema and became one of the highest-paid actors during that time. Biography Farnum was born on July 4, 1876, in Boston, Massachus ...

as The King *

Arthur Shields Arthur Shields (15 February 1896 – 27 April 1970) was an Irish actor on television, stage and film. Early years Born into an Irish Protestant family in Portobello, Dublin, Shields started acting in the Abbey Theatre when he was 17 years old. ...

as Patrick the Harp * Johnny Conrad and Dancers

Mel Blanc Melvin Jerome Blanc (born Blank ; May 30, 1908July 10, 1989) was an American voice actor and radio personality whose career spanned over 60 years. During the Golden Age of Radio, he provided character voices and vocal sound effects for comedy ra ...

provides the voices of the woodland animals of the Giant's land.

Production

Since

Universal-International Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Americ ...

would not spend the money to make an Abbott and Costello film in color, the duo decided to produce color films themselves. Utilizing a clause in their contract with Universal that allowed the team to make one independent film per year, Costello's company, Exclusive Productions, shot this film in 1951 and Abbott's company, Woodley Productions, made a second color film, ''

Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd ''Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd'' is a 1952 comedy film directed by Charles Lamont and starring the comedy team of Abbott and Costello, along with Charles Laughton, who reprised his role as the infamous pirate from the 1945 film ''Captain ...

'' in 1952.

distributed both films but did not provide financing or production services.Furmanek, Bob and Ron Palumbo (1991). ''Abbott and Costello in Hollywood''. New York: Perigee Books. ''Jack and the Beanstalk'' was filmed from July 9 through August 2, 1951 at

Hal Roach Studios Hal Roach Studios was an American motion picture and television production studio. Known as ''The Laugh Factory to the World'', it was founded by producer Hal Roach and business partners Dan Linthicum and I.H. Nance as the Rolin Film Company on Ju ...

on sets from ''Joan of Arc'' (1948). Like ''The Wizard of Oz'', the film's opening and closing segments were presented in

sepia tone In photography, toning is a method of altering the color of black-and-white photographs. In analog photography, it is a chemical process carried out on metal salt-based prints, such as silver prints, iron-based prints (cyanotype or Van Dyke b ...

– although many of the DVD releases present these sequences in black and white – while the entire "Jack and the Beanstalk" story was filmed in

Eastmancolor Eastmancolor is a trade name used by Eastman Kodak for a number of related film and processing technologies associated with color motion picture production and referring to George Eastman, founder of Kodak. Eastmancolor, introduced in 1950, was on ...

and presented in the

SuperCineColor Cinecolor was an early subtractive color-model two-color motion picture process that was based upon the Prizma system of the 1910s and 1920s and the Multicolor system of the late 1920s and the 1930s. It was developed by William T. Crispinel an ...

process (Eastmancolor in subsequent releases). Many television stations that aired the film normally transmitted black-and-white shows and movies with color equipment turned off, so they ran the sepia tone openings and closings in black and white while running the color portion in color.

Animation Animation is a method by which image, still figures are manipulated to appear as Motion picture, moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent cel, celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited ...

is used to show the beanstalk growing in Jack's backyard.

Soundtrack

Songs written by Lester Lee and Bob Russell: *"Jack and the Beanstalk" *"I Fear Nothing" *"Dreamer's Cloth" *"He Never Looked Better in His Life" A soundtrack, including songs and dialogue, was released on

Decca Records Decca Records is a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis (Decca), Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934 by Lewis, Jack Kapp, American Decca's first president, and Milton Rackmil, who later became American ...

on June 9, 1952.

Re-release

The film was re-released in 1960 by

RKO Pictures RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orphe ...

Copyright

The film rights were sold to RKO in the late fifties. They did not renew the copyright in 1979, so it entered the public domain.

Home media

As this film is in the public domain, it has been released multiple times on DVD from several companies. It was released on Blu-ray three times in 2008, 2015, and 2020. On October 23, 2020, Bob Furmanek had launched a

Kickstarter Kickstarter is an American public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative projects to life". As of July 2021, ...

campaign to fund a restoration for Blu-ray which reached its $7,500 goal in two hours. ClassicFlix released the restoration on Blu-ray and DVD on July 26, 2022, in commemoration of the film's 70th anniversary.

References

External links

* * * * * {{Jack 1952 films 1950s musical fantasy films 1952 musical comedy films American children's fantasy films American fantasy comedy films American musical comedy films American parody films Abbott and Costello films Cinecolor films 1950s English-language films Films about dreams Films based on Jack and the Beanstalk Films directed by Jean Yarbrough Films set in castles American musical fantasy films Warner Bros. films Films scored by Heinz Roemheld 1950s parody films 1950s American films