Thumbelina — news, coverage & facts — IJR

Plot

The camera fades to a windmill, then it turns to a town called Paris, where a romantic and wisecracking swallow named Jacquimo flies through the town and into a library where he tells the story of a tiny girl who was smaller than a thumb.

A lonely widow longing for a child of her own is given a barley seed by a friendly witch. The planted seed grows into a flower, and a tiny girl emerges from inside, no bigger than the old woman's thumb. The old woman names the tiny girl Thumbelina and raises her as her own. Although Thumbelina loves her mother, she craves the companionship of someone her own size. One night, the fairy prince Cornelius stumbles upon Thumbelina after hearing her singing. He is the first person whom she has ever met who is roughly her own size. The two take a ride on Cornelius' bumblebee and fall in love. That night, Mrs. Toad, who was enchanted by the singing during the ride, kidnaps Thumbelina, desiring her to join the troupe and marry her son Grundel. Thumbelina is rescued by Jacquimo. Meanwhile, Cornelius learns of her being kidnapped, and returns to his kingdom, the Vale of the Fairies, to ask his parents to try holding back the winter as long as they can, but they can only hold it for a day.

Grundel learns that Thumbelina has escaped and ventures out to find her. While heading home with the help of Jacquimo's bug friends, Thumbelina meets Berkeley Beetle, a sleazy nightclub singer who promises to show her the way home if she sings at his Beetle Ball. She reluctantly complies, but her bug disguise falls off during the concert, and the insect audience denounces her as ugly. Beetle abandons Thumbelina without helping her. However, she is again found by Jacquimo, who promises to find Cornelius for her. Beetle is confronted by Grundel and suggests that Grundel kidnap Cornelius and use him to lure Thumbelina. Inspired by that idea, Grundel coerces Beetle into capturing the prince for him while he sets up the trap for Thumbelina.

Winter arrives. Jacquimo injures his wing and loses consciousness in the cold, while Cornelius is blown into a pond where he freezes. Beetle finds the frozen Cornelius and takes him to Grundel. Meanwhile, Thumbelina has been taken in by a greedy mouse named Miss Fieldmouse. After relaying Cornelius' fate to her, Miss Fieldmouse introduces Thumbelina to her wealthy neighbor Mr. Mole, who also becomes infatuated with Thumbelina and has Miss Fieldmouse persuade Thumbelina to marry him. Thumbelina is devastated by the apparent loss of Cornelius, gives in to hopelessness, and accepts Mr. Mole's proposal. As Thumbelina reluctantly makes up her mind to wed, Jacquimo revives and rushes off to find Cornelius before the wedding, unaware that the prince is supposedly dead.

Meanwhile, Beetle learns of Thumbelina's wedding and warns Grundel, who rushes off after her. When Grundel leaves Cornelius behind in his haste to reach Thumbelina, the trio of insect children who helped Thumbelina earlier find and thaw Cornelius out. At the wedding, Thumbelina finds herself unable to marry Mr. Mole after remembering Cornelius' promise to always love her. Grundel crashes the wedding, and Thumbelina flees. Cornelius arrives and engages Grundel in a fight, which culminates with the two falling into a hole as Thumbelina escapes by climbing a pile of Mr. Mole's treasure to the surface.

Jacquimo finds the Vale of the Fairies and takes Thumbelina there. As Thumbelina sings to thaw winter and usher in spring, she and Cornelius reunite. As they embrace, Thumbelina magically grows her own pair of wings. With Jacquimo, the three insect children, Thumbelina's mother, and the fairy court in attendance, the two marry and depart on Cornelius's bumblebee. Meanwhile, Beetle resumes his pop career after his wings regrow, Grundel survives the fall with a broken leg and falls in love with a female toad to his mother's delight, and Mr. Mole marries Miss Fieldmouse.

Production

Having watched the 1952 film Hans Christian Andersen, Don Bluth decided to adapt the fairy tale Thumbelina into an animated feature film. Bluth stated, "I wanted every little girl in the world to love Thumbelina, and I was determined to get an early start on the script." To write the screenplay, Bluth hired American writer Carol Lynn Pearson, who also admired the fairy tale. She arrived at the Sullivan Bluth Studios in Dublin with her family to meet with Bluth. After she had submitted a story treatment, the two held several story meetings, in which Bluth gave Pearson nine months to complete the screenplay. By the eighth month, Pearson turned in her final script draft. Bluth read the draft later that night, and held a follow-up meeting with Pearson the next morning. He said, "There are some great moments ... But there's also some stuff missing." He explained that Cornelius, the fairy prince, was a "wimp" and that Thumbelina is too pitiful on herself.

Pearson was told to improve Thumbelina and Cornelius's love story, and have Thumbelina act more optimistically. She flew back to the United States to be with her children, who were starting school. A month later, Bluth and Pearson met again in Century City, Los Angeles to discuss her script revisions. However, she held firm to her vision for the story. Bluth then decided to rewrite the script himself. In February 1991, Thumbelina went into production at Sullivan Bluth Studios Ireland Ltd. (formerly known as Sullivan Bluth Studios at that time) in Dublin. During the film's production, Sullivan Bluth faced financial difficulties when the UK-based Goldcrest Films threatened to liquidate the studio when they had failed to repay a loan statement of $300,000. The Irish High Court gave Sullivan Bluth time to prove they could make the necessary payments. However, in April 1991, Goldcrest repealed its lawsuit.

After the release of Rock-a-Doodle (1991), and its disappointing box office performance, the studio (which was renamed Don Bluth Entertainment) filed for bankruptcy protection in October 1992. Due to Bluth Entertainment's liquidation proceedings, the production staff had been laid off. A month later, John Boorman's production company Merlin Films, along with the Hong Kong-based Media Assets, made bids to spend $14 million to acquire the studio. By this time, Bluth had three films in development: Thumbelina, A Troll in Central Park (1994), and The Pebble and the Penguin (1995). The acquisition was approved by the Irish High Court, with Merlin Films and Media Assets spending $6 million to immediately complete the first two films, though financiers wanted Thumbelina released first. With Boorman as the company's new chairman, the production staff of 500 people, who had lost their jobs, were rehired to finish the film.

Critical reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 40% of 15 critics' reviews were positive, with an average rating of 5.3/10.

Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called Thumbelina "another success from Bluth and his partner Gary Goldman [which] is a work of lilting pace and charm with an array of enjoyable rather than memorable songs, with lyrics by Jack Feldman and Bruce Sussman and music by Barry Manilow". James Berardinelli of ReelViews gave the film three stars out of four, and wrote: "Thumbelina is close to, but not quite at, the level of The Little Mermaid, the weakest of Disney's recent entries". Dave Kehr of the Chicago Tribune also gave the film three stars out of four, writing: Thumbelina "rivals some of Disney's best work". He felt the film's best moments were "its star-studded comedic cast and a memorable score by Barry Manilow. Most notable is the voice of Thumbelina, melodically performed by Jodi Benson, the voice of Ariel in The Little Mermaid."

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two stars out of four, concluding his review: "It is difficult to imagine anyone over the age of 12 finding much to enjoy in Thumbelina". Stephen Holden of The New York Times favorably compared Manilow's music to Alan Menken's in The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast (1991), but said the lyrics "lack the chiseled-in-stone wit of Howard Ashman's brilliant lyrics for those films". Rita Kempley of The Washington Post criticized Bluth's deviations from the original fairy tale, writing: "By turning the story upside down, Bluth has stripped away its natural tension. The Lilliputian heroine never really grows or changes; she just wanders about the forest fighting off horny toads, marriage-minded moles and other quirky little critters. There's plenty of talent here -- Carol Channing, Barbara Cook, Gilbert Gottfried and John Hurt -- but it's wasted on this fallow ground."

It won a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song for the song "Marry the Mole", sung by Carol Channing.

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