Ferdinand the duck, witness to insanity.

Babe: Pig in the City

(1998)

George Miller seems to have a knack for box office oblivion with sequels to family films. Happy Feet 2 met with extreme indifference, whereas Pig in the City was greeted with outright rejection. Arguably, neither film merited a sequel but Miller’s choice to take the sheep pig on a twisted journey into the heart of darkness is at least unexpected and unyielding to the sensibilities of the little darlings who were its target audience.

Alarming also that Babe sets in motion the chain of danger and disaster when he hospitalises Farmer Hoggett. With the threat of foreclosure on the farm, he is sent with the farmer’s wife to the Big City to display his talents in a show with the promise of payment. Things don’t go as planned, however, and before long they end up lodging in animal-friendly hotel replete with all sorts of waifs and strays. Babe’s presence there is also a negative, leading to the occupants being captured and imprisoned (for animal testing?) The film is chock full of mortal thoughts, including a bull terrier that nearly drowns and a crippled dog with wheels experiencing heavenly fields before being called back.

Even if Miller doesn’t follow through with a downer ending, it’s admirable in a way that he was willing to go where he does. As precedents in his work go, there’s the same garish sense of humour on display that was evident in his earlier Witches of Eastwick. For the most part the film is engagingly surreal, even if the slapstick antics of Mrs Hoggett at the climax test the patience.

****

Comments

I never strangled a chicken in my life!

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They'll think I've lost control again and put it all down to evolution.

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I'm an old ruin, but she certainly brings my pulse up a beat or two.

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You must have hopes, wishes, dreams.

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A herbal enema should fix you up.

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Miss Livingstone, I presume.

Stage Fright (1950) (SPOILERS) This one has traditionally taken a bit of a bruising, for committing a cardinal crime – lying to the audience. More specifically, lying via a flashback, through which it is implicitly assumed the truth is always relayed. As Richard Schickel commented, though, the egregiousness of the action depends largely on whether you see it as a flaw or a brilliant act of daring: an innovation. I don’t think it’s quite that – not in Stage Fright ’s case anyway; the plot is too ordinary – but I do think it’s a picture that rewards revisiting knowing the twist, since there’s much else to enjoy it for besides.

She was addicted to Tums for a while.

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You can’t climb a ladder, no. But you can skip like a goat into a bar.

Juno and the Paycock (1930) (SPOILERS) Hitchcock’s second sound feature. Such was the lustre of this technological advance that a wordy play was picked. By Sean O’Casey, upon whom Hitchcock based the prophet of doom at the end of The Birds . Juno and the Paycock , set in 1922 during the Irish Civil War, begins as a broad comedy of domestic manners, but by the end has descended into full-blown Greek (or Catholic) tragedy. As such, it’s an uneven but still watchable affair, even if Hitch does nothing to disguise its stage origins.

Do you know the world is a foul sty? Do you know, if you ripped the fronts off houses, you'd find swine? The world's a hell. What does it matter what happens in it?

Shadow of a Doubt (1943) (SPOILERS) I’m not sure you could really classify Shadow of a Doubt as underrated, as some have. Not when it’s widely reported as Hitchcock’s favourite of his films. Underseen might be a more apt sobriquet, since it rarely trips off the lips in the manner of his best-known pictures. Regardless of the best way to categorise it, it’s very easy to see why the director should have been so quick to recognise Shadow of a Doubt 's qualities, even if some of those qualities are somewhat atypical.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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