One of the funkier aspects of the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry is the inclusion of extraordinarily obscure amateur works alongside Hollywood productions. In 2008, a home movie made in Connecticut in 1956 by Robbins Barstow called “Disneyland Dream” was added to the National Film Registry alongside such classics as “Foolish Wives,” “The Invisible Man,” “The Asphalt Jungle,” “Flower Drum Song,” “Deliverance,” and “The Terminator.”
A home movie in the company of Von Stroheim, Huston and a half-dressed Nancy Kwan as she enjoys being a girl? Where’s the logic to that?
As the Library of Congress press release for that year’s National Film Registry declared: “The Barstow family films a memorable home movie of their trip to Disneyland. Robbins and Meg Barstow, along with their children Mary, David and Daniel were among 25 families who won a free trip to the newly opened Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., as part of a ‘Scotch Brand Cellophane Tape’ contest sponsored by 3M. Through vivid color and droll narration (‘The landscape was very different from back home in Connecticut’), we see a fantastic historical snapshot of Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Catalina Island, Knott’s Berry Farm, Universal Studios and Disneyland in mid-1956. Home movies have assumed a rapidly increasing importance in American cultural studies as they provide a priceless and authentic record of time and place.”
Well, yeah, “Disneyland Dream” has some historic value in recording California’s celebrated attractions through the eyes of average Americans during the middle of the Eisenhower era. But did the folks at the Library of Congress actually watch “Disneyland Dream” before putting it on the National Film Registry? Quite frankly, it is one of the most boring films to receive this accolade.
The film gets off on the wrong foot with a cutesy sequence regarding the family’s entering the contest and learning they’ve won. Father, mother, and the three children faint on the lawn of their suburban house, one after the other, and their falls are shot in slow-motion collapses. The Barstows also stage a big farewell by their neighbors as they leave on their vacation, with everyone standing around waving frantically with huge Joker grins. That sequence is even more bizarre than watching the Barstows fainting.
As for the trip itself, the film becomes a tedious record of the family at their hotel and wandering about the tourist attractions. I don’t know what “vivid color” the National Film Registry is highlighting – all I see is flat and dull 16mm imagery, with next to nothing on-screen that would entertain or invigorate anyone beyond the Barstow family and their closest friends. As the name suggests, a home movie is meant to be seen at home and not in front of a wide audience.
The “droll narration” was added to the film by Robbins Barstow in 1996 and it is numbing. The original film was completely silent, but Barstow recorded an excessive commentary track describing what we’re watching. Unfortunately, his enthusiasm for his home movie footage becomes a dreary oversell and, to be cruel, his voice becomes annoying. This rivals Charlie Chaplin’s narration in the 1942 reissue of “The Gold Rush” as being the worst belated soundtrack update on a movie.
“Disneyland Dream” has an accidental blip of notoriety because it briefly captures an 11-year-old Steve Martin in a childhood job of selling souvenir programs at Disneyland. If you check out the photo at the top of this review, Martin can be seen wearing a top hat.
When you consider how many wonderful films are still absent from the National Film Registry while muck like “Disneyland Dream” is included, the prestigious list loses a lot of its credibility.