User Reviews

I do remember this. I think I found it once, apparently on tape then, and was surprised to see Eddie Albert and Tammy Grimes listed as the little parents. It was long before the internet, so I really don't recall how I saw the casting.

As it was, when I first viewed it, I didn't recognize Albert, about the only one I would have known.

I just saw the Arrietty movie and decided to check out this one to see how different it was.

I won't spoil it, but I do recall an attempt to take out the little people, and how effective it seemed to me, seeing the furniture that had been to the little people's size (and therefore was natural size for Albert and Grimes) suddenly being trounced around.

This 'attempt' wasn't in the cartoon, so clearly someone did some re-structuring of the story. Don't know which.

I know this version was very low-budget looking, and clearly must not have been that well done for a 7-yr-old to notice.

I do remember there was a pleasantness to it. Don't recall any of the big people tho.

Wouldn't mind seeing it again for some of the actors and some of the effectiveness.

An eight year old boy discovers a family of little people living under the floorboards. The film is on the hokey side. It has songs by ear cult poet Rod McKuen who I never liked. Idiotic lyrics like "Being alive is the best part of living." Is that supposed to be deep? The film transfer made it difficult to watch. I like that Lady Sophia drank Madeira wine, which was the favorite of George Washington. It was very expensive in his day and he would bill congress during the war to have cases imported. Kids might like it if they made it watchable.

The Clock Family - Pod (Eddie Albert), Homily (Tammy Grimes) and Arriety (Karen Pearson) - are Borrowers, small people who live in the houses of human beans, as they call big people, and stay out of view. Arriety, unlike any Borrowers before, becomes friends with the eight-year-old (Dennis Larson) who lives in the house they have turned into their world.

Based on the book by Mary Norton, this was directed by Walter C. Miller (who mainly worked on the Grammy, CMA and Tony award show broadcast, as well as directing several Rodney Dangerfield specials) and written by Jay Presson Allen, who wrote the screenplays for Marnie, Funny Lady, Cabaret and Death Trap. She was a screenwriter when few women were.

The Borrowers was also made into two BBC TV series, a 1997 and 2011 movie and an anime in Japan called Karigurashi no Ariettii that was produced by Studio Ghibli.

This TV movie version of the classic children's book is often quite difficult to watch because it seems overwhelmed with ideas that don't come together and differing seems in its attempt to be pleasing to children and adults. With a great cast led by Eddie Albert, Tammy Grimes and Dame Judith Anderson, this film is a mixed bag, featuring poor special effects but some great sets for the Borrower family that really expresses what their world of little people is like. A young boy comes to live with his great aunt (Anderson), a feisty bedridden woman who would give what few years she has left to be able to go outside and ride horses again. As she tells her great nephew about his father's life and how she influenced him, you see in this great lady all the years fall off of her, and in spite of the fact that she's in bed clothes and cap, Anderson makes her character seem much younger than her years. Anderson was 76 when she made this film and is playing a character still within her wits that is obviously a lot older. Ironically, Anderson would work more than a decade to this, and in spite of her limited movements in the film, walks away with it.

There are some great moments of conversation between Albert as the Borrower patriarch and Anderson (whose character enjoys her spirits which makes the staff believe that she's seeing things), but I found Tammy Grimes rather cold and unsure as Albert's wife. Dennis Larsen as the nephew listens more than he speaks with his elders, and when he befriends that didn'tinutive Karen Pearson (as Albert and Grimes' daughter), he finally gets to reveal what his character is all about. Beatrice Straight, having returned to acting around this time (and going on to win an Oscar just a few years later for her cameo in "Network"), is the very imperious housekeeper with Barnard Hughes as the handyman, and the banter between the two is very funny. This Hallmark Hall of Fame TV special may have done well at the time, but it seems very dated and stagy 50 years later, even if some of the acting and technical aspects bring it up a notch. This was a film that was very difficult to get through again, having seen it several times before, and needing to watch it again to write this. Great for one view, but I doubt young children will find any interest in it because of for print quality and cheesy effects.