The Water Babies (film)

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The Water Babies is a 1978 live action-animated feature film, very loosely based on the book The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby by Charles Kingsley. The film is directed by Lionel Jeffries.

Video The Water Babies (film)

Plot

When a 12-year-old chimney sweep is wrongfully blamed for being a thief, he makes a run for it with his dog Toby, and they end up jumping into a violent river. There they encounter a civilisation of anthropomorphic underwater creatures. Before he can return to the surface and clear his name, however, Tom must help rescue his new friends, the Water Babies, from their nemesis. Featured voices include those of James Mason, Bernard Cribbins and Tommy Pender. The film starts and ends similarly to the book, though in the book Tom actually dies, and is only allowed above the sea on a temporary basis. The movie also adds a whole new subplot, involving a Killer Shark, an Electric Eel and the mythical Kraken, who decides whether or not Tom can return to the surface. There are also several invented characters, whom Tom befriends on his quest: Jock, a Scottish lobster, Terence, an effeminate starstruck seahorse, and Claude, a foppish French swordfish.

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Cast

James Mason as Mr. Grimes/Voice of Killer Shark
Bernard Cribbins as Masterman/Voice of Eel
Billie Whitelaw as Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby/Old Crone/Mrs. Tripp/Woman in Black/Water Babies 'Gate Keeper'
Joan Greenwood as Lady Harriet
David Tomlinson as Sir John/Voice of Polar Bear
Tommy Pender as Tom
Samantha Gates as Elly/Voice of Ariadne the Water Baby
Paul Luty as Sladd/Voice of Claude the Swordfish
Jon Pertwee as Salmon/Jock the Lobster/Kraken
Olive Gregg
Lance Percival as Terence the Sea Horse
David Jason as Cyril the Walrus
Cass Allan
Liz Proud
Una Stubbs