The Gnome-Mobile

The Gnome-Mobile is a 1967 American fantasy comedy film directed by Robert Stevenson and produced by Walt Disney Productions. Based on the 1936 book The Gnomobile by Upton Sinclair, it was one of the last films personally supervised by Walt Disney. Walter Brennan is dual cast as D.J. Mulrooney, the kind-hearted lumber tycoon of Irish descent, and as the irascible 943-year-old gnome Knobby. The film crosses genres "between a comedy, a romance, a drama, and an environmental critique". Karen Dotrice and Matthew Garber, previously the Banks children in Mary Poppins (1964), portray Mulrooney's grandchildren Elizabeth and Rodney. Tom Lowell, as the gnome Jasper, Richard Deacon, and Sean McClory round out the cast. Richard and Robert Sherman contributed the title song. The film marked the final roles for both Matthew Garber and Ed Wynn. The Gnome-Mobile was re-released theatrically on November 5, 1976. Plot 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, 10-year-old Elizabeth and 8-year-old 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.