Watch The Terror of Tiny Town For Free

Sorry, this movie sucks

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

The Terror Of Tiny Town is not a classic, nor even that good. The Shetland pony riding is rough, the singing (especially by Buck- it's dubbed) is rougher, and the 'small' jokes roughest, but the film is enjoyable. It's not a 'so bad it's good' film, but it is a cute film that never takes itself seriously, and as anyone who has read my criticism before knows, pretense is the ultimate killer. The acting is not good, and the screenplay loaded with mediocre dialogue, but, on the positive side, there are a few moments when one is sucked into the film's world; the best example being when Bat and his gang try to rob the stagecoach that brings Nancy to town. After Buck and his boys chase off the bad guys, Buck goes to stop the runaway stage (again, not exactly original), and there is some genuine serial-level excitement. Not bad for a gimmick film, and certainly something that lifts the film up beyond mere exploitation. Also, while most film fare at this level- think The Beast Of Yucca Flats or Santa Claus Conquers The Martians- are loaded with many moments a viewer says, 'That makes no sense,' from a logical standpoint. There are no such moments like that in the narrative, although there are throwaway bizarrenesses, like the appearance of the penguin, or Otto's pursuit of the duck, or why a blacksmith's horse, about to be shoed, is the only normal sized horse in the film, when others are Shetland ponies, and the odd breaks into song. That all said, it is amusing, it is guileless, it is sweet, and it is utterly unpretentious (from its opening 'intro,' to its cartoonish credits, to its almost Harold Lloydian ending). There are far better movies, and there are many worse films. The Terror Of Tiny Town, though, is a film that any fan of the medium should see, at least once, if for no other reason than its utter uniqueness in film history, especially contrasted against so many other western musicals of its day. It may not have many, but it does have charms.

This film borders on being as offensive of some John Water's earliest films. It is as politically incorrect as a production can be, stereotypes midgets, gives one the impression of a town run by five year old kids. I'm left with the impression that the small freaks escaped from the set of a Todd Browning film and decided chuck to horror films in favour of comedy. The problem is that the script is really not comedy, it is a drama; the outrageousness of a wild west town run by midgets is what makes it funny. Picture a film like For a Few Dollars More with the same script and all midgets for actors and you get the idea. This is great theatre of the absurd.

One wonders who thought this would be a great idea--a western done straight with all midgets. Plot-wise this is like any other B western--two neighboring ranchers suspect each other of rustling their cattle. The Hero (that's how he's billed in the cast--Billy Curtis) of one ranch falls in love with the Girl (Yvonne Moray) of the other ranch! And the Villain (Little Billy) tries to frame the Hero.The plot is as old as the hills and every single Western cliché is firmly in place. Also there are songs! The movie opens with the entire town singing a nauseating song about how happy they are! There's there's a saloon vamp (Nita Krebs) who squeaks out a few more (and very badly too). The acting is truly horrendous and (cinematically speaking) this movie is worthless. After the initial novelty of the midgets wears off this is pretty lame stuff. Still it moves quick and is only about an hour long. Also there are some good action scenes--if you can get past the midgets riding ponies instead of horses! I give this a 3 because it does have its moments and you have to admire the fact that the whole movie is played straight.

1st watched 2/12/2007 - 3 out of 10(Dir-Sam Newfield): Complex story, but hammy-acting and silly songs make this major attempt to bring to the screen a serious story with midgets(or should I say the "vertically-challenged") a failure. The story revolves around the bad guy in town named Bat Haines, who is fooling everybody and plotting two families against each other by stealing each other's calves and then setting it up so that each one blames the other. He even has the sheriff eating out of his hand and bully's everyone else to see things his way. If you haven't guessed yet, he is "the Terror of Tiny Town." Enter the hero, the young son of the Lawson clan, who tries to fix things and stirs up a little romeo & juliet style romance on the side with a niece in the other family. Well, as you can guess, all things work out in the end and we get to hear one of the silly songs(there are about 4 songs in the movie and all are pretty silly) to close out the movie. This actually was a grand attempt to make a Hollywood picture with only the little ones but the mediocre acting stands out, sadly.