A dwarf quits life on the farm to hit the big city, where he falls into the hands of a criminal gang.
IT’S A SMALL WORLD (1950)
Cast: Paul Dale (Harry Musk), Lorraine Miller (Buttons), Will Geer (Harry’s Father), Nina Koshetz (Rose Ferris), Steve Brodie (Charlie), Anne Sholter (Dolly Burke), Todd Karns (Sam), Margaret Field (Janie at 16), Shirley O. Mills (Susan Musk at 16), Tom Brown Henry (Jacks0n), Harry Harvey (Doctor), Henry Corden, Paul E. Burns (Italian Truck Farmers), Jacqui Snyder (Susan at 8), Lora Lee Michel (Janie at 8), William Castle (Cop). Director: William Castle. Producer: Peter Scully. Screenplay: William Castle, Otto Schreiber. Cinematography: Karl Struss. Music: Karl Hajos.
B&W – 74 min.
Showtime: Saturday April 11th 11:00pm PST/2:00am EST.
When a promised A-list assignment failed to materialize at Columbia Pictures, where he had slaved for the better part of a decade making programmers for the studio’s B-unit under the vulture eye of Harry Cohn, writer-director William Castle asked to be released from his contract. Hiring on at Universal-International for a three-year separation from Cohn (who later hired him back and got him working in Technicolor), Castle further maximized his options by pitching the odd project to independent Eagle-Lion Films, the American distribution arm of England’s J. Arthur Rank Organization. (Founded in 1946, Eagle-Lion had absorbed the bankrupt Poverty Row outfit Producers Releasing Corporation and was by 1948 producing B-pictures to accompany into the cinemas such lofty British imports as Powell and Pressburger’s THE RED SHOES and Laurence Olivier’s HAMLET). Seeing the cinematic possibilities in Robert Heinlein’s 1947 science fiction novel Rocket Ship Gibraltar, Castle proposed a space exploration film to be titled DESTINATION MOON but Eagle-Lion chief Arthur Krim turned him down flat, declaring the concept was just too fantastic. (Producer George Pal latched onto the discarded title and won a 1951 Academy Award for his DESTINATION MOON.) Undaunted, and with no shortage of big ideas, Castle took his sales pitch in another direction entirely.
IT’S A SMALL WORLD (1950) was released at a time when Hollywood, its ranks thinned by Red Scare paranoia, was arguing for greater social tolerance in American society. Films such as Edward Dmytryk’s CROSSFIRE (1947), Elia Kazan’s GENTLEMAN’S AGREEMENT (1947), Anatole Litvak’s THE SNAKE PIT(1948), and Mark Robson’s HOME OF THE BRAVE (1949) chronicled the lives of “outsider” protagonists and stumped for the acceptance of people of different races and faiths, as well as for those suffering from the stigma of mental illness. (It’s worth noting that most of these directors fell under the scrutiny of the House on Un-American Activities Committee, targeted for investigation due to the progressive nature of their films.) Seemingly taking his cue at least in part from Tod Browning’s notorious pre-Code shocker FREAKS (1932), Castle (and cowriter Otto Schreiber – a possible pseudonym that is the name as well of an infamous German anarchist who died in a British prison in 1917) tells the tale of a dwarf (Paul Dale) who, having been raised in isolation by a well-meaning but unenlightened father (Will Geer, himself blacklisted for his unabashedly leftist politics), strikes out at last on his own – only to be seduced by the seeming affections of a woman of conventional size (Lorraine Miller) and inducted into a gang of pickpockets (captained by Steve Brodie).
Its narrative arc structured in three theatrical acts, IT’S A SMALL WORLD allows its protagonist by the final frames to slip the bonds of indentured servitude and find happiness, perhaps surprisingly, as the employee of a traveling circus. Despite the high concept of its logline, IT’S A SMALL WORLD is streets away from the exploitable fare that Castle would be making by the end of the decade. Conspicuous in its absence is the ballyhoo of MACABRE (1958), THE TINGLER (1959), and THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1959), the only gimmick being the film’s sincerity. Aiding in the cause of respectability is the cinematography of Karl Struss, an Academy Award winner in 1929 for F. W. Murnau’s SUNRISE (1927) and later nominated for his work on DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1931), THE SIGN OF THE CROSS (1934), and ALOMA OF THE SOUTH SEAS (1941). (Though not remembered exclusively for his work in genre, Struss would also lens the horror/sci-fi classics ISLAND OF LOST SOULS and THE FLY, as well as two films for Charlie Chaplin.) Shot in the fall of 1949, IT’S A SMALL WORLD was the last credit for composer Karl Hajos (THE STORY OF TEMPLE DRAKE, WEREWOLF OF LONDON), who died in February 1950, four months before the film’s premiere.
Filling TCM’s “overnight” slot is another Castle joint, MACABRE (1958)… the King of the Gimmicks’ first go as a modern day sideshow huckster. Moviegoers could purchase life insurance policies right there in the bijou lobby in case the film frightened them to death.