Dennis the Menace (film)


Dennis the Menace is a 1993 American family comedy film based on the Hank Ketcham comic strip of the same name. The film was directed by Nick Castle and written and co-produced by John Hughes, and distributed by Warner Bros. under their Family Entertainment label. Dennis the Menace concerns the misadventures of a mischievous child who wreaks havoc on his next door neighbor George Wilson, usually hangs out with his friends Joey and Margaret Wade, and is followed everywhere by his dog, Ruff. The film also features a cameo appearance by Jeannie Russell who was a cast member on the original television show.
Released on June 25, 1993, Dennis the Menace was a commercial success, grossing $117.2 million on a $35 million budget despite receiving negative reviews from critics. A direct-to-video sequel called Dennis the Menace Strikes Again was later released in 1998 without the cast from this film. Another direct-to-video sequel called A Dennis the Menace Christmas was released in 2007 with different cast from both first and second films.

Plot

Dennis Mitchell is a five-year-old boy who lives with his parents, Henry and Alice, and is the bane of next door neighbour George Wilson and others in his neighbourhood. One morning, Dennis shoots an aspirin into George's mouth with a slingshot after two failed attempts to give the man an aspirin by hand. This causes George to gag and spit out the pill, as Dennis flees home. Henry and Alice learn of the incident, but because they both have to work, Alice has to take him to stay at Margaret Wade's house for the day. Dennis dislikes Margaret who is mean to him. Margaret and Dennis, along with his friend Joey, venture into the woods to an abandoned tree house and intend to fix it up. Later, while getting paint from a high shelf in the garage, Dennis tries to grab his slingshot, which was taken away from him by Henry, and accidentally spills the paint on the ground. He tries to vacuum it up, but ends up spilling a glob of paint into George's barbecue grill, while George cooks chicken, and he tastes the paint. That night, Dennis has a set of babysitters; Polly and her boyfriend, Mickey. He plays doorbell pranks on them and they retaliate by sticking a thumbtack on the doorbell and preparing water and flour to douse on the prankster. However, George goes over to Dennis's house, against the wishes of his wife, Martha, to find out what Dennis knows about the paint in his chicken. But when he rings the doorbell, he pricks his thumb, and gets water and flour dumped on him, much to Martha's amusement. Meanwhile, a burglar named Switchblade Sam arrives in town and begins robbing houses, as well as stealing things outdoors and striking fear into the children he meets.
Henry and Alice are having increasing difficulty getting people to watch Dennis when they both work. George and Martha are charged with the task for the weekend when Henry and Alice have been called away on business trips. Martha loves Dennis as if he were her own grandson, as she and George are childless, and she enjoys telling Dennis a bedtime poem that her mother told her. However, George is further irritated by Dennis spilling bath water on the bathroom floor, replacing George's nasal spray with his mouthwash and the mouthwash with toilet cleanser, and letting Dennis's dog Ruff into the house. George mistakes Ruff for Martha in the dark.
Fortunately for George, he has been selected to host the Summer Floraganza, a long-awaited garden party. He has spent virtually forty years growing and nurturing a rare night-blooming orchid especially for the event. Despite the investment, the flower is supposed to die shortly after blooming. Alice’s flight is delayed by a thunderstorm, so Dennis remains at the Wilsons' house for the night of the orchid’s blooming. Martha is understanding, but George is deeply dismayed about this. But, at her insistence, he grudgingly lets Dennis stay outside for the party with a firm warning to behave himself. However, Dennis presses the garage door button, causing the door to knock over the dessert table and make a huge mess. George angrily sends him inside shortly after seeing the mess. While the Wilsons and their guests await the flower's nocturnal blooming, Switchblade Sam robs the house. Dennis hears him as he leaves, then goes downstairs to find the safe open and George's gold coins missing from the safe. Just as the flower is about to bloom, he alerts George of the robbery, distracting him and everyone else long enough to miss the flower's brief display. Furious about his forty year investment gone to waste and the constant mishaps Dennis has caused, George severely chastises and disowns Dennis, causing him to flee on his bike. Dennis heads into the park, where Switchblade Sam grabs him as a hostage.
Henry and Alice arrive home to learn from Martha and the police of Dennis's disappearance prompting a town-wide search. Having discovered Dennis was telling the truth about the robbery, a guilt-ridden George reflects on all the harsh things he has said to Dennis and carries out his own search for him. Meanwhile, Dennis unintentionally but effectively defeats Sam by tying him up, handcuffing him, losing the handcuff key, bludgeoning him several times and torching him twice, among other things. He returns to the Wilsons' house the next morning with an injured Sam in his wagon, having also recovered George's gold coins which he discovered Sam stole. Before long, Sam is taken into police custody by the town's police chief who advised him at one point to leave town. When the officer closes the door on Sam's handcuffed hand, he ends up breaking his hand, and Sam's switchblade knife falls down the drain. Dennis and George make amends, and the Mitchells and Wilsons are also on better terms. That night, George explains that he's learned some things about children: "Kids are kids, you have to play by their rules. If you can't do that, you're headed for trouble. You have to roll with the punches. You have to expect the unexpected."

Cast

Mason Gamble won the role of Dennis Mitchell after beating out a reported 20,000 other children who had auditioned for it.
The film premiered on June 25, 1993. It was known simply as Dennis in the United Kingdom in order to avoid confusion with an unrelated British comic strip, also called "Dennis the Menace", which also debuted in 1951.

Music

The film's music was composed by veteran composer Jerry Goldsmith, who was John Hughes's first and only choice to write the score for it. The short-lived Big Screen Records label released an album of Goldsmith's score alongside the film in July 1993; La-La Land Records issued the complete score in April 2014 as part of their Expanded Archival Collection on Warner Bros. titles.
Additionally, three old-time pop hits were featured in the film: "Don't Hang Up" by The Orlons, "Whatcha Know Joe" by Jo Stafford and "A String of Pearls" by Glenn Miller.

Reception

The film was a success at the box office. Against a $35 million budget, it grossed $51.3 million domestically and a further $66 million overseas to a total of $117.3 million worldwide, despite generally negative reviews from film critics.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 27%, based on 26 reviews with an average rating of 3.9/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Walter Matthau does a nice job as Mr. Wilson, but Dennis the Menace follows the Home Alone formula far too closely."
Vincent Canby, in what would become one of his final reviews for The New York Times, remarked that "this 'Dennis the Menace' isn't a comic strip, but then it's not really a movie, certainly not one in the same giddy league with the two 'Home ' movies," adding that "Mr. Hughes and Mr. Castle try hard to re-create a kind of timeless, idealized comic-strip atmosphere, but except for the performances of Lea Thompson and Robert Stanton, who play Dennis's parents, nobody in the movie seems in touch with the nature of the comedy" and that the film "simply looks bland, unrooted in any reality." Of the other performances, Canby stated that Gamble was "a handsome boy, but he displays none of the spontaneity that initially made Macaulay Culkin| Culkin so refreshing".
A mixed review came from Peter Rainer of the Los Angeles Times, who praised Matthau's performance enormously, yet called the film "pretty tepid tomfoolery but not assaultive in the way that most kids’ films are nowadays":
Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "There's a lot to like in Dennis the Menace. But Switchblade Sam prevents me from recommending it." Mason Gamble received a Razzie Award nomination for Worst New Star but also won "Best Youth Actor Leading Role in a Motion Picture: Comedy" at the 15th Youth in Film Awards.

Video game

The film also spawned a platforming video game for the Amiga, Super NES and Game Boy platforms. It included stages based off Mr. Wilson's house, the great outdoors, and a boiler room among others.