Tony Mastroianni Review Collection
"Gnome-Mobile" Sets Merry Pace
Cleveland Press August 2, 1967
"The Gnorne-Mobile" which has been drawing the children's trade at local theaters the last few days, is another one o£ those imaginative fantasies that the Disney Studio does so well.
This one is more closely geared to the tastes of small youngsters than have been recent Disney films.
It is about gnomes and normal people and the sort of trick and process photography required to portray the divergent sizes in the same scenes has never been better done.
WALTER BRENNAN plays a dual role -- that of an irascible but kind-hearted lumber tycoon and also a bearded 943-year-old gnome.
The movie is scenically splendid as tycoon Brennan takes his grandchildren (Matthew Garber and Karen Dotrice from "Mary Poppins") for a motor trip through the California redwood country.
IT IS THERE that they find a pair of gnomes (Tom Lowell and Brennan) with a problem. It seems all the other gnomes are gone, disappeared with the coming of the lumber men. And for young Lowell there are no girl gnomes.
So tycoon Brennan and party, traveling in an ancient but well-kept Rolls Royce, set out to find another tribe of gnomes.
ALONG THE WAY the gnomes are gnomenapped by the owner of a freak show and Brennan is tossed into a locked room in a sanitarium. The kids rescue their grandfather and there follows one of the wildest and funniest auto chase sequences ever put on film.
"Gnome-Mobile" sags a little at the end but kids will find it fun most of the way. Oldsters may get a nostalgic twinge watching the late Ed Wynn in his last role as a thousand-year-old gnome.
