THE PRINCESS AND THE MAGIC FROG (1965)
aka At the End of the Rainbow
Article 2346 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 8-28-2007
Posting Date: 1-14-2008
Directed by Austin Green
Featuring David Alan Bailey, G. Edward Brett, Nancy DeCarl

A boy gets lost in the forest. He saves a leprechaun and gets his bag of gold coins in return. The coins are magic coins, but they can only grant wishes to help others. He must use them wisely if he wishes to return home.

You know, I bet this movie would be great entertainment for a six-year-old. It’s also very family friendly; its most violent scene has a genie hit in the face with a pie, and its most risque scene is a performance by puppet can-can dancers. Feel free to set your child in front of it and let him or her enjoy it. Whether you want to watch it yourself is another matter; it’s cute at first, but after awhile the slightly condescending air to it (plot points are fatiguingly belabored) becomes wearing, the golly-gee-whiz-gosh style dialogue is insufferable, and, for a movie with wizards, knights, gypsies, genies, leprechauns, talking signs and self-ambulatory puppets, it looks like it was made for twenty dollars and shot in the nearby park. There are many lessons to be learned along the way. As I said, fun for your six-year-old. I would have enjoyed it forty-two years ago.