Dennis the Menace (1993 film)

This article is about the 1993 American live-action film. For the 1987 TV film, see Dennis the Menace (U.S. comics) § Film and television.

Dennis the Menace
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Nick Castle
Written by	John Hughes
Based on	Characters by Hank Ketcham
Produced by	John Hughes Richard Vane
Starring	Christopher Lloyd Joan Plowright Lea Thompson Paul Winfield Mason Gamble Walter Matthau
Cinematography	Thomas E. Ackerman
Edited by	Alan Heim
Music by	Jerry Goldsmith
Production companies	Hughes Entertainment Hank Ketcham Enterprises
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	June 25, 1993 (1993-06-25)
Running time	96 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$35 million
Box office	$117.2 million

Dennis the Menace (released in the United Kingdom initially as Dennis to avoid confusion with a then identically named character) is a 1993 American family comedy film based on the Hank Ketcham comic strip of the same name. It was directed by Nick Castle and written and coproduced by John Hughes, and distributed by Warner Bros. under their Family Entertainment label. It concerns the misadventures of a mischievous child (Mason Gamble) who wreaks havoc on his next door neighbor, George Wilson (Walter Matthau), usually hangs out with his friends, Joey (Kellen Hathaway) and Margaret Wade (Amy Sakasitz), and is followed everywhere by his dog, Ruff. It also features a cameo appearance by Jeannie Russell who was a cast member on the original television show.

Released on June 25, 1993, the film was a commercial success, grossing $117.2 million on a $35 million budget despite receiving negative reviews from critics. A direct-to-video sequel called Dennis the Menace Strikes Again was later released in 1998 without the cast from this film. Another direct-to-video sequel called A Dennis the Menace Christmas was released in 2007 with a different cast from both this film and the second one.

Plot

Five-year-old Dennis is a constant source of mischief in his neighborhood, especially to his elderly next door neighbor, George Wilson. One summer morning, George pretends to be asleep to avoid him, who mistakes this for illness and shoots an aspirin into George’s mouth with his slingshot. His parents, Henry and Alice, learn of the incident and confiscate his slingshot, but they can't immediately discipline him any further for it, because they both are leaving for work. They leave him with his best friend, Joey, at the home of their classmate, Margaret Wade, whom they dislike because she is a boy-hating snob. Despite their dislike, they fix up an abandoned treehouse in the woods, while an itinerant criminal nicknamed Switchblade Sam arrives in town and steals Margaret’s doll, Baby Louise.

Dennis, while getting paint for the treehouse, reclaims his slingshot, but spills the paint all over the garage floor, and attempts to vacuum it up. However, he inadvertently shoots a glob of paint and wood splinters onto George’s barbecue grill while the latter is cooking chicken. Tasting the paint and wood, he suspects Dennis. The Mitchells leave Dennis with a teenage babysitter named Polly, who invites her boyfriend, Mickey, over. Sneaking outside, Dennis pranks them by ringing the doorbell and hiding until Mickey tapes a thumbtack to it. George walks over to the Mitchells' house, against his wife Martha's wishes, to investigate the vacuum in their garage, where he accidentally shoots himself in the gonads with a golf ball. Hoping to confront the Mitchells, he pricks his thumb on the tack. Mistaking him for the prankster, Polly and Mickey douse him in bathwater and flour, much to Martha's amusement. Switchblade Sam commits a string of robberies throughout town and is noticed by the suspicious Chief Bennett, who politely advises him to leave town.

Bringing the sleeping George an apology card, Dennis plays with his dentures and loses the two front teeth, replacing them with Chiclets just before George has his picture taken for the local newspaper. Henry and Alice both have to leave on business trips, but have trouble finding someone willing to babysit Dennis. Martha agrees to let him stay with her and George, happy to treat him as the child they never had. While she enjoys telling him a poem from her own childhood, George is infuriated by slipping on his spilled bathwater, ripping his new pajamas in the process, and finding out he had emptied his nasal spray, and replaced it with mouthwash, and replaced the mouthwash with toilet cleaner. Dennis lets his dog, Ruff, inside the Wilsons’ house, leading George to mistake him for Martha in the dark. In the attic, Dennis' carelessness makes George slip on mothballs and nearly get crushed by a canoe.

George has been chosen to host his garden club’s “Summer Floraganza”, having spent almost forty years growing a rare orchid that will finally bloom on the night of the party. Alice's flight home is delayed by a thunderstorm forcing Dennis to stay with the Wilsons that night. While Martha is understanding, George is deeply dismayed about this. At her insistence though, he grudgingly allows Dennis to attend the party but warns him to be well-behaved. During it, he initially stays out of the guests' way because he does not like them due to their pinching of his cheeks. He then finds himself pressing a black button which turns out to open the garage door, which upends the entire dessert table. George angrily sends him inside for this. While everyone awaits the flower’s nocturnal display, Switchblade Sam robs the Wilsons' house, stealing George’s collection of antique coins from the safe. Dennis hears him as he leaves, then goes downstairs to find the safe open and the coins missing. He alerts George, distracting everyone from the brief blooming of the flower, which then dies, which causes the party to be ruined. Furious about his forty-year investment being all for nothing and unaware about the robbery, George releases his pent up hatred at Dennis, who flees to the woods in sadness and is caught by Switchblade Sam. Henry and Alice arrive home to learn that he has disappeared, prompting a town-wide search, and even a guilt-ridden George sets out to find him after realizing that he was telling the truth about the robbery.

Switchblade Sam prepares to leave town with Dennis as an unsuspecting hostage. Showing him the proper way to tie him up, Dennis handcuffs him, loses the handcuff key, and unintentionally bludgeons and torches him multiple times. Just as Dennis discovers George’s stolen coins and realizes Switchblade Sam is a thief, Sam attempts to stab him but is snared in a rope caught by a passing train, and is too beaten up to attempt anything further. The next morning, Dennis returns home with the captured and tied-up Switchblade Sam as well as George's recovered coins, to the relief of George and the entire neighborhood. Sam is arrested by the amused Chief Bennett, and Dennis naïvely gives him his switchblade back where he attempts to stab him once more with it. But Bennett accidentally closes the squad car door on Sam’s hand, causing him to drop his knife into the sewers and wince in pain before being driven away.

Dennis and George make amends after Dennis tells George that he brought his coins back to him, and Alice mentions that she can bring Dennis to work with her as her office now has a day care center. George insists that he and Martha would be happy to continue watching him themselves, just as he accidentally flings a flaming marshmallow onto George's forehead. During the closing credits, Dennis unwittingly gets his mother's condescending, child-hating coworker, Andrea, caught in the office copy machine.

Cast

• Mason Gamble as Dennis Mitchell
• Walter Matthau as George Wilson
• Joan Plowright as Martha Wilson
• Christopher Lloyd as Switchblade Sam
• Lea Thompson as Alice Mitchell
• Robert Stanton as Henry Mitchell
• Amy Sakasitz as Margaret Wade
• Kellen Hathaway as Joey McDonald
• Paul Winfield as Chief Bennett
• Natasha Lyonne as Polly
• Devin Ratray as Mickey
• Hank Johnston as Gunther Beckman
• Melinda Mullins as Andrea
• Billie Bird as Edith Butterwell
• Bill Erwin as Edward Little
• Arnold Stang as Photographer
• Ben Stein as Boss (only cameo shot at meeting)
• Jeannie Russell as Neighbor

Production

Mason Gamble won the role of Dennis Mitchell after beating out a reported 20,000 other children who had auditioned for it.

The film premiered on June 25, 1993. It was known simply as Dennis in the United Kingdom in order to avoid confusion with an unrelated British comic strip, also called "Dennis the Menace", which also debuted in 1951.

Music

The film's music was composed by veteran composer Jerry Goldsmith, who was John Hughes's first and only choice to write the score for it. The short-lived Big Screen Records label released an album of Goldsmith's score alongside the film in July 1993; La-La Land Records issued the complete score in April 2014 as part of their Expanded Archival Collection on Warner Bros. titles.

Additionally, three old-time pop hits were featured in the film: "Don't Hang Up" by The Orlons, "Whatcha Know Joe" by Jo Stafford (from the 1963 album, Getting Sentimental over Tommy Dorsey) and "A String of Pearls" by Glenn Miller.

Home media

On November 16, 1993, Warner Home Video released the film on VHS and LaserDisc. It was released on DVD January 28, 2003, and was re-released on a double feature DVD with Dennis the Menace Strikes Again on August 30, 2005.

Reception

The film was a success at the box office. Against a $35 million budget, it grossed $51.3 million domestically and a further $66 million overseas to a total of $117.3 million worldwide, despite generally mixed reviews from film critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has an approval rating of 27%, based on 26 reviews with an average rating of 3.9/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Walter Matthau does a nice job as Mr. Wilson, but Dennis the Menace follows the Home Alone formula far too closely."

Vincent Canby, in what would become one of his final reviews for The New York Times, remarked that "this 'Dennis the Menace' isn't a comic strip, but then it's not really a movie, certainly not one in the same giddy league with the two 'Home Alone' movies," adding that "Mr. Hughes and Mr. Castle try hard to recreate a kind of timeless, idealized comic-strip atmosphere, but except for the performances of Lea Thompson and Robert Stanton, who play Henry and Alice, nobody in the movie seems in touch with the nature of the comedy" and that the film "simply looks bland, unrooted in any reality." Of the other performances, Canby stated that Gamble was "a handsome boy, but [that] he displays none of the spontaneity that initially made [Macaulay] Culkin so refreshing".

A mixed review came from Peter Rainer of the Los Angeles Times, who praised Matthau's performance enormously, yet called the film "pretty tepid tomfoolery but [...] not assaultive in the way that most kids’ films are nowadays":

The “Dennis” comic strip, early ‘60s TV show and currently syndicated animated series all opt for an Everytown U.S.A. blandness—pipsqueak rebellion in a ‘50s time warp. The movie, directed by Nick Castle from Hughes’ script, is still caught up in that warp (with a few concessions, like the fact that both of Dennis’ parents now work). This means that Dennis doesn’t get into any high-tech shenanigans. No computers, no video games, no laser guns. The film pretty much sticks to the old-fashioned basics [and] since this Dennis is only 5 years old, perhaps the decision was made to keep things slapstick-simple. Or could it be that the filmmakers regard Dennis as a “classic"—like, say, Huck Finn or Penrod?

This sort of misplaced reverence probably won’t do much for young audiences accustomed to a little more zap and bounce in their heroes. Parents might be grateful, though. The shenanigans in “Dennis the Menace” are mostly so mildly conceived and executed that kids aren’t likely to try them out on their families when they get home from the theater. Mom and Dad won’t have to lock up the frying pans.

If Hughes was expecting this film to create another pipsqueak franchise for him, he may have miscalculated. “Dennis the Menace” seems more like a rest period in between Culkin-ized tantrums. It’s not much—just one goofy little foul-up after another—but its lack of crassness is rather sweet.

Roger Ebert gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and wrote, "There's a lot to like in Dennis the Menace. But Switchblade Sam prevents me from recommending it." Mason Gamble received a Razzie Award nomination for Worst New Star but also won "Best Youth Actor Leading Role in a Motion Picture: Comedy" at the 15th Youth in Film Awards.

Video game

The film also spawned a platforming video game for the Amiga, Super NES, and Game Boy platforms. It included stages based on Mr. Wilsons' house, the great outdoors, and a boiler room among others.

External links

• Dennis the Menace at IMDb
• Template:Amg movie
• Dennis the Menace at the TCM Movie Database
• Dennis the Menace at Box Office Mojo
• Dennis the Menace at Rotten Tomatoes