He returns home from school to find a large package awaiting him, the Phantom Tollbooth, including coins for travel and a map. The Phantom Tollbooth is a story about Milo, a young boy bored with school and life in general. Apparently, there has been plans slowly formulating for another version of The Phantom Tollbooth since 2010, and one internet page I visited suggested that Matt Shakman, a director of Game of Thrones, might be involved, but there is no detail on IMBD unless you pay for the pro version of the website. Also, Alice and Wonderland has received numerous cinema and television treatments, not all good but well known, while Chuck Jones’s 1970 version of Juster’s book seems somewhat obscure. I had to order the book from America, its ‘home’, since Juster is from New York and lives in Massachusetts, while I can wander down to my small local bookstore and buy various versions of Alice in Wonderland, a book The Phantom Tollbooth recalls to many readers. The result is more than the sum of its parts, and good, alternative family entertainment is what you get.The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster was first published in 1961, but I have known of its existence for less than two weeks as I begin to write this review. But, and I have to emphasize this again, don't let you stop you from seeing this movie.

Plus, even though he was still short for his age, there was no disguising the fact that he was, in every other way, a fast-maturing fifteen year old, and, thus, just a bit too old for the procedngs. And, finally, Butch Patrick (Best known as 'Eddie Munster' on 'The Munsters') plays Milo, the central character, as such a whiney little jerk, at least in the beginning, that it's hard to work up much sympathy for him as the story goes on. The moralizing, more pronounced here than it was in the original Norton Juster book, gets to be a bit heavy-handed at times. The songs, by veterans Paul Vance and Lee Pockriss, range from the clever ('Don't Say There's Nothing to Do in the Doldrums,' 'Time Is a Gift') to the treacly ('Henceforth and Forthwith'). Not that the film is without its' faults, by any means. Mel Blanc, June Foray, Shepard Menken, etc., contribute their usual outstanding voice work (The scenes with Blanc as 'Officer Short Shrift,' especially, are a howl!), and the visuals, as one would expect from Jones, are consistently outstanding and imaginative. Like Chuck Jones' earlier 'Gay Purr-ee,' this is a good film for those who are looking for something good, if decidedly different, in family entertainment.

The phantom toll booth norton juster