I am going to launch straight into the Tri-Critic Sync Challenge as we could be just about to shoot the moon. I can only find one score as I type and its from IMDb and it is a match with me at 7.7/10 but technically there is no score from Rotten Tomatoes so we may well be on for what was feeling like a miraculous event of all three of us agreeing. Normally in this situation we would go with the audience score so I will go and check that out now… Darn it the audience score was seven clicks away at 70%. So close but strictly not an exact match here I will accept this onto the score sheet as the outer limit is 7 so it will take its place on the score sheet which I will share as a separate blog update in between the 150th and the 149th movie review.
This movie was released back in 1983 and was a Cosgrove Hall production and if you want more information on that check out my review of the BFG #257. As it will explain my love for them in more detail. This movie has many of those elements back again including David Jason as the voice of Toad. It was directed by Mark Hall and the animation director was Chris Taylor. Produced by Mark Hall, John Hambley and of course Brian Cosgrove. The movie was made using stop motion animation and uses the voices of David Jason, Richard Pearson, Ian Carmichael, Michael Hordern, Beryl Reid, Una Stubbs, Jonathan Cecil, Brian Trueman, Allan Bardsley & Edward Kelsey. I cannot quote money in terms of cost or income as I believe this is a film for TV so they keep the costs a secret and they are not competing with other movies in the box office lists so no detail there… Onto the plot.
Mole is fed up with cleaning and ventures out and bumps into Rat on the river they become instant friends and grow close. Rat introduces Mole to Badger and then onto Toad who has quite a bit of cash and lives in a mansion. Toad has a very compulsive, addictive personality and has a new fad of caravanning. He has a wooden home pulled along by a single horse and he is loving it. Until he is run off the road by a car that comes speeding past him scaring the horse that bolts causing his wooden caravan to crash. Rather than being upset by this Toad is very excited by this new motorised vehicle that can zoom about the countryside. So he buys a car, but crashes it. Buys another car and crashes that one as well. In this version of the Wind in the Willows the dark wood and the weasels are much more involved and they see an opportunity of taking over Toad Hall when the rest of the population are fed up with Toad rushing around in his car causing problems and then crashing again, and again is finally arrested freeing up his home for the weasels to invade. It is down to Toads friends of Rat, Badger and newly found Toad to try and help him out.
This movie was such a success that it went on to start a children’s TV show which ran for 54 episodes which I remember loving as a kid and probably being too old for them they were still a good reminder of this original movie. This movie was effectively the pilot episode to kick start the series. This stand alone movie was a great one and has lots of things to remind me of my childhood and what I remember with fondness. It is still a classic tale which has been told many times since and although funnier in places this still holds my heart for the greatest version that I have seen. Well worth a watch with your kids or if you have to borrow some you can do that as well.
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