I remember seeing this film in St.Albans either at the Odeon or the Gaumont whilst on our annual holiday there probably in 1959.   The scenes of the banshee and the death coach were really scary and so impressive that I have carried the memory to this day. When I saw the video on its release many years later, I was astonished to find that the scenes were still impressive even after all those years.    In fact my daughters who were very young at that time of the video release just could not watch the Banshee and the Death Coach when it arrived.  Walt Disney always maintained that children don’t mind being scared if they are with their parents and I have a feeling this is quite true.

 This is a Disney masterpiece in its own way but I don’t remember it being accompanied by the same publicity machine that was used for previous films like Treasure Island and Robin Hood for instance.

Considering how sophisticated special effects have become since ‘Darby O’Gill’ was made in 1959, this film still  looks good and the special effects appear astonishing and  that’s quite a tribute to the moviemaking skills of the day.

Just take a look at the above picture to see the sheer genius of matte painting. The whole top half of this picture including the church spire and the roof of the house on the right as well as the far off hills and sky, have all been painted onto a sheet of glass in front of the camera and then matched to the moving action below so well in fact that it is impossible to see the ‘join’

This was the work of Peter Ellenshaw who was the Matte Painting genius of the world who had worked exclusively for Walt Disney from 1950.

The duals between Darby and  King Brian, are wonderfully funny, as each tries to outsmart the other. The village characters are all well-drawn and very likeable.

The scenery is lovely aided again by some stunning matte paintings by Peter Ellenshaw.  The actors are well up to the job and seem to fit the roles well. The music is catchy  and really there’s nothing not to like in this movie. 

 Favourite scenes would have to include the banshee and death coach at the end, as mentioned, and all the leprechauns dancing under the fairy mountain then riding their little white horses out into the night as Darby plays them a wild tune on his fiddle.

 These stills from the film are really good ones and at the time gave us a flavour of what we were to see once inside the cinema.

I do recall every film seemed to be accompanied by these Front of House Stills which were displayed outside the cinema  to lure us in and quite often in those days we did go in.

We have not yet mentioned the actors in any detail. Albert Sharpe played Darby brilliantly and King Brian was played by Jimmy O Dea.

Sean Connery had a singing part in this and his girl friend was Janet Munro who became a Disney regular  in Third Man on the Mountain, Swiss Family Robinson and this one.  In 1972 Janet died under somewhat mysterious circumstances. Reports circulated that she choked to death at a London hotel while drinking tea. The immediate cause of her death was acute myocarditis; the underlying cause was chronic ischemic heart disease. The sun set all too soon on this lovely actress at the age of 38.  She was survived by her two daughters, Sally and Connie her children from her marriage to actor Ian Hendry.

I seem to remember that they lived on an island in the Thames up towards Maidenhead.

Keiron Moore played the baddie in this.

This is one of Disney’s very best films.