This week we find reasons to be glad as we watch cheeky Hayley Mills as Pollyanna charming the pants off of everyone in this sleepy little town. A little town that has a love for oversized cake slices, sexy marlboro voiced doctors and now with Pollyanna's help rainbows made by crystals. It's Pollyanna this week from 1960, quite appropriate for our 160th episode.
Storyline :A little girl comes to a town that is embattled by feuds and intimidated by her aunt. By the time she must leave, she has transformed the community with her indominatable will to see the good side of even the worst situations and bring it out for the betterment of all.
Directors: David Swift
Writers: Eleanor H. Porter and David Swift
Stars: Hayley Mills, Jane Wyman, Richard Egan, Karl Malden and Nancy Olson
Awards: 2 Wins & 1 Nominations
Film Budget: Unknown
Gross Worldwide: Unknown
Classic Disney live action movies aren't really known for their poppin soundtracks but here are a few of the scores that set the tone for this film.
Just wonderful entertainment!
According to writer and director David Swift, after looking at 362 girls for the part of Pollyanna, they still did not have anyone to play the part. One day, producer Walt Disney's wife Lilly went shopping with Disney studio head Bill Anderson's wife while they were in London, England on business. The two ladies saw Hayley Mills in Tiger Bay (1959) and thought she was perfect for the role of Pollyanna. The two men didn't listen to them, but they were so persistent that the men finally agreed to watch the movie and immediately decided to cast Hayley.
Writer and director David Swift wanted to trim this movie by about twenty minutes and rearrange some scenes (most notably the acquisition of the doll in the town bazaar sequence). But producer Walt Disney, who had fallen in love with this movie by watching the dailies, would not allow it, and Swift did not have final-cut privileges.
When this movie performed below expectations at the box office, producer Walt Disney put out his theory for the movie's disappointing performance: "I think the picture would have done better with a different title. Girls and women went to it, but men tended to stay away because it sounded sweet and sticky."
This marks the first of six movies Hayley Mills made during her five-year contract with Walt Disney Studios.
Roy O. Disney, studio business head and brother to producer Walt Disney, issued thousands of "Pollyanna photo locket necklaces" as a promotional item containing the famous quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln in this movie. Discovering the necklace in a gift shop while on vacation with his family, writer and director David Swift called the studio to have the item recalled immediately. It turned out that Lincoln had never said, "When you look for the bad in mankind expecting to find it, you surely will." Swift had simply made it up.
Pollyanna can be watched right here on disney+ just be sure to have those tissues handy.