The Gnome-Mobile is a 1967 Walt Disney Productions comedy-fantasy film directed by Robert Stevenson. It was one of the last films personally produced by Walt Disney. It was based on a 1936 book by Upton Sinclair titled The Gnomobile. Walter Brennan plays a dual role as D.J. Mulrooney, the kind-hearted lumber tycoon of Irish descent; and as the irascible 943-year-old gnome Knobby in the film, which has been described as "wavering between a comedy, a romance, a drama, and an environmental critique" The children, Elizabeth and Rodney, were played by Karen Dotrice and Matthew Garber, familiar from their roles as Jane and Michael Banks in Mary Poppins. Tom Lowell, who plays the young gnome Jasper in this movie, also appeared in the 1965 Disney filmThat Darn Cat! as Canoe, the befuddled surfer boyfriend of Hayley Mills. The Gnome-Mobile was the final film for both Matthew Garber and Ed Wynn. Wynn died of throat cancer before the movie was released and Garber died ten years later, having contracted hepatitis while visiting India. Richard and Robert Sherman contributed the song "Gnome Mobile". The Gnome-Mobile was re-released theatrically on November 5, 1976.
Plot summary
The story opens with the children's grandfather, D.J. Mulrooney, a well-known executive officer of a timber-trading company. D.J. is going to Seattle to sell 50,000 acres of timberland and takes his customized 1930 Rolls-Royce Phantom II on the trip. In a brief conversation with his company's head of security, Ralph Yarby, we learn that the car was purchased after D.J. earned his first million dollars. His first stop is the airport, where he picks up his grandchildren Elizabeth and Rodney, who are to accompany D.J. on his trip to Seattle. Traveling north from San Francisco, the trio detour through what later became Redwood National Park where D.J. has endowed a grove of Redwood trees, entitled "Mulrooney Grove". There they encounter a gnome called Jasper, who has "a terrible problem". They also are introduced to Jasper's 943-year-old grandfather Knobby who, like D.J., is passionate and short-tempered. Jasper's "terrible problem" is that Knobby is suffering from a sickness called "fading", or becoming semi-transparent. D.J. diagnoses this as Knobby losing the will to live. The reason for this "fading" is that Knobby fears that he and Jasper are the last two of their Gnome kind, and Knobby wants Jasper to find a bride before Knobby dies. Knobby harbors immense hatred for humans because of the human's logging damage to the forests and the livelihood of gnomes. D.J. Mulrooney is startled when Knobby exclaims that the worst loggers were "Mulrooney's Marauders", but the gnomes agree to go along with the trio and seek other gnomes. As they leave together, the children rename the Rolls-Royce "the Gnome-Mobile". Jasper and his grandfather are kidnapped by Horatio Quaxton, a freak show owner, while D.J. is committed to an asylum by Yarby, who has heard about the gnomes and deems his boss insane. Rodney and Elizabeth rescue D.J. from the asylum, rescue Jasper from Quaxton, and then set out to find Knobby, who had managed to escape earlier. They arrive in the woods to find Knobby delighted with the presence of a thriving community of gnomes. Jasper is recognized by Rufus the Gnome King as "the eligible gnome" to a large number of young females of his race, who compete in a contest to determine which one will marry him. He is smitten with one timid, lovely girl gnome named Shy Violet, who is very clumsy, but very innocent, even though she is hated by all of the other gnomes. Jasper tries to get Violet to catch him, but she keeps getting pushed to the side and run over by the other very aggressive girl gnomes. However, after a very wild chase, Violet manages to win the race and she and Jasper get married. D.J. gives as a wedding present the rights to the 50,000 acres of forest that were to be sold for logging, which become a haven for the gnomes.
of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four, calling the special effects "fascinating" and reporting that the kids in the audience "got their money's worth." Howard Thompson of The New York Times described it as "a good-natured but heavy-handed little comedy," finding that "the action and light-hearted spirit sag under a crisscross jumble of slapstick and broadly handled locomotion that flattens the fun." Arthur D. Murphy of Variety described the film as "amusing, if somewhat uneven." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "The moppet audience for which 'The Gnome-Mobile' is intended will obviously find it a delight, funny and ingenious. The full-sized among us will find a few laughs, too, but cannot rank the film with Disney's best by a long shot, or a gnome shot." The Monthly Film Bulletin called it "A whimsical fantasy in the Disney tradition of clean, honest fun, with a merrily tuneful title song, moderately ingenious trick work, and some unsophisticated comedy of which the highlight is a car chase in which the aristocratic old Rolls is pursued by a modern vehicle which bit by bit falls to pieces." Film critic Leonard Maltin rates this as one of Disney's best comedy-fantasy films, and states that it is a "mystery" why the film is not better known. He says it deserves to be rediscovered and enjoyed by a new generation, especially younger children.
