Darby O'Gill and the Little People

Darby O’Gill and the Little People 1959

• Director: Robert Stevenson
• Based on the stories by Herminie Kavanagh  
• Cast: Albert Sharpe, Janet Munro, Sean Connery, Jimmy O’Dea, Kieron Moore, Estelle Winwood
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Albert Sharpe – Brigadoon
• Janet Munron – The Day the Earth Caught Fire, Third Man on the Mountain
• Sean Connery – The Rock, The Name of the Rose, James Bond
• Estelle Winwood – Camelot, Bewitched, the Man from U.N.C.L.E.
• Why?  Pure nostalgia
• Seen: 23 August 2019 

Old Darby (Sharpe) likes to drink in the pub and regale his mates with tales of meeting Brian Connor, King of the Leprechauns (O’Dea), of being granted three wishes only to lose them all through King Brian’s trickery. His job is as caretaker for the lord’s estate but he’s being replaced by young Michael McBride (Connery). Darby has a daughter Katie (Munro). There’s a villain of course, Pony (Kieron Moore) whose mother (Winwood) wants him to have both job and daughter.

Well, there you have it. I think we can guess how it goes. But on the way to the inevitable happy ending there are some adventures among the little people (have the leprechauns no women?)

What my 9-year-old self liked so much about this film is hard to say. Darby is charming and it does get dramatic at the end with banshees and death wagons. And I suppose the soon-to-be James Bond with his gorgeous dimply smile and glowing brown eyes wowed little me.

Older and wiser me, I’m harder to charm. But I’m not completely immune. It was good fun. Even Hal liked it. Shall we say?

3 * of 5