The Phantom Tollbooth (1970) Review

This blog is not dedicated specifically to Abbott and Costello, so for this next review I chose The Phantom Tollbooth, one of only two feature films directed by the legendary animator, Chuck Jones (the other, The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie was a compilation film featuring new bridging sequences).

For those of you who don’t know who Chuck Jones is, he was an animation director on many of the classic Warner Brothers cartoons, directing some of the most highly regarded cartoons ever, including Duck Amuck, One Froggy Evening, and What’s Opera, Doc? In the early 1960s, Jones was fired from Warner Bros. when they discovered that he had breached his contract by co-writing the UPA feature film, Gay Purr-ee. Jones then started his own production company, Sib Tower 12 Productions. At first, he was contracted to work mainly on new theatrical Tom and Jerry cartoons for MGM. However, Jones soon found himself adapting already famous properties into animation: he adapted two Dr. Seuss books (How the Grinch Stole Christmas! and Horton Hears a Who!) into TV specials, Walt Kelly’s Pogo into The Pogo Special Birthday Special, and his former Warner Bros. colleague Frank Tashlin’s The Bear That Wasn’t into a theatrical short.

Among the works that he adapted was The Dot and the Line, an Academy Award-winning theatrical cartoon based off a book by Norton Juster. Juster also wrote The Phantom Tollbooth and apparently The Dot and the Line’s success inspired Jones to adapt this other work as a feature film instead. The film did not do very well upon release, due to internal struggles with MGM that prevented the film from getting much promotion or even really a large-scale release. However, it still is an interesting curiosity to see how Jones’s style translates into a feature film. Keep in mind that I have never read the original work, so I will be reviewing this as its own standalone feature film and how it holds up as that. So, without further ado, let’s talk about The Phantom Tollbooth.

The trailer for The Phantom Tollbooth:

Here’s the story: Milo (Butch Patrick of Munsters fame) finds himself very bored to the point that he doesn’t feel like doing anything. He then finds that a tollbooth has been sent to him and upon entering finds himself in a new, but somewhat messed-up world. With his new friends Tock the watchdog (Larry Thor) and Humbug (Les Tremayne), he must fix this world by rescuing Princesses Rhyme and Reason (June Foray and Patti Gilbert) from the Castle in the Air.

The film is animated for the most part, though does feature live action segments at the beginning and end, with the idea that Milo is leaving the real world to enter the animated world. It’s a nice idea that works, though not really that unique. There really is only one scene that takes advantage of this opportunity and that’s when he first enters the tollbooth and discovers the change that’s taken place. It’s a well-timed scene that requires perfect timing both on the live action and animated ends, but otherwise both the live action and animation are separated from each other.

One thing that must be kept in mind in addition to the fact that this is based off of a book is that this was also made during a point where cartoons were not allowed to be as violent as they once were, so anyone expecting the edge of the Warner Bros. cartoons simply due to Jones’s name alone will be disappointed. This is clearly a film made for kids, though I think that adults can benefit from some of the messages it conveys. The best way I can put it is that it’s a very thought-provoking film. There is a lot of reflective dialogue in this film and a lot of these moments may pass you by quickly, but when you do catch some of these lines, like the line about how it’s better to be wrong for the right reasons than it is to be right for the wrong reasons, it really encourages you to think of what they may truly mean in many different contexts.

The designs are very in tune with Jones’s style. Jones seemed to have a specific interest in character expressions and often made the eyes on the main characters fairly large partly as a way to convey this. Outside of the main characters, though, the animators really get a chance to show off particularly with the demons that precede the Castle in the Air. These designs are just wonderful to look at for how weird and outlandish they can be, much more than they could have done even at Warner Bros.

A lot of jokes come from puns. Many of the character names are a result of this, including Tock the watchdog, the Whether Man, the Spelling Bee, the Which, the Mathmagician, the list goes on. There’s also the idea of characters taking things too literally. For example, when giving Milo a sentence, Officer Short Shrift actually writes Milo out a short sentence and gives it to him. Also, when the Mathmagician talks about being stuck with words, a word is actually stuck to his hand. Some of these are actually pretty clever, though sometimes you get the feeling that they could have toned it down a bit. Occasionally we do get to see a good visual joke on its own. I especially loved the timing on Humbug’s scream after being stung by the Spelling Bee.

There are a lot of side characters in this, most of which seem to have small roles at first but do come back in the end. I enjoy most of the characters like the Spelling Bee and especially the Whether Man, but again it does feel like the number could have been pushed back a little bit. There’s a character called Dr. Dischord, for example, who does inadvertently end up helping them in the long run with one of his senses and the design of his Awful Dynne is pretty cool, but they only help out once and very well could have been cut out altogether.

There are lots of great moments artistically. There’s a moment where Milo messes up the sky while trying to conduct it and it is just amazing to look at how the sky totally goes out of control. The song sequences sometimes also lend themselves well to creativity like during the “Time Is a Gift” song when they’re literally driving around and sometimes even on clocks. Speaking of the songs, they can also be pretty catchy sometimes and I did often find myself enjoying songs like “Time Is a Gift” and “Milo’s Song.” The score itself was composed by Dean Elliott, the same guy who did the music for some of the Dr. Seuss specials such as The Cat in the Hat and The Hoober Bloob Highway. It very much is music that is a product of the 1960s and 1970s, which I can see some people disliking, though I’ve always liked Elliott’s style.

If there is one problem with this film, it’s that sometimes the pacing can be a bit weird. For example, at the beginning, there’s sort of a collage of concepts being taught to Milo such as William Shakespeare and e=mc^2 and he also mentions having to spell February over the phone with his friend. He later thinks of these concepts as his way to get out of the Doldrums. It’s a cool idea, but why was it used so early? Shouldn’t this have been used in the climax? It’s almost as though Milo learned his lesson too early in the film. The climax itself is fine, though its idea of using numbers and words equally can be a bit confusing. While he does use numbers in the literal sense as a weapon, he only uses words in the conceptual sense for some of the monsters, despite the idea that they are supposed to be working together. Maybe I’m just overthinking it, though, again, it is a very thought-provoking film.

The Phantom Tollbooth is an overall entertaining film that’s great for the family, though obviously not something to watch if you’re trying to get away from thinking too much. Though it’s definitely not Jones’s finest work, it still does a very good job being what it’s supposed to: a film that teaches the value of living life to its fullest; a very good message for a very charming film.

9 out of 10