‘Child of Glass’ & Other Forgotten Disney Gems Now on DVD

Some­how it com­pletely escaped my atten­tion that a few months ago Dis­ney started releas­ing many of their older, lesser-known films on DVD as part of the Dis­ney Gen­er­a­tions Col­lec­tion . For Dis­ney fans, the Gen­er­a­tions col­lec­tion is a trea­sure trove of rare or oth­er­wise for­got­ten films–both ani­mated and live-action–that until now have remained sealed away deep within the Dis­ney vault.

Among the many new-to-DVD Dis­ney films in the col­lec­tion is one of my per­sonal favorites: Child of Glass .  Before now, Child of Glass was only avail­able on VHS and it was dif­fi­cult to find a copy that wasn’t being sold for an exor­bi­tant amount.  And even if you were lucky enough to score one–ew, VHS!

For years I’ve held onto an extremely old VHS copy that my grand­mother recorded for me some­time back in the early 80’s, when I was about five or six.  Not only is the qual­ity com­plete shit, but the tape has been played so many times the track­ing is per­ma­nently out of whack.  Need­less to say, I ordered this DVD imme­di­ately. And I’m also think­ing about pick­ing up Beyond Witch Moun­tain and Fuzzbucket .

Sleep­ing Lies the Mur­dered Lass…

Child of Glass is one of the coolest old Dis­ney films, and one of the most charm­ing. It’s a coming-of-age story, a mur­der mys­tery, and light hor­ror film all in one.  There’s plenty of creepy atmos­phere, a big old South­ern man­sion, his­tor­i­cal period cos­tumes, ceme­ter­ies at night, fire, an old aban­doned well–all the mak­ings of an adven­tur­ous ghost story.

Synopsis:

Strange forces are at work here…Listen to the call of the spirits…They’ll come to you soon…” It’s a warn­ing 13-year-old Alexan­der Armsworth hears (and ignores) from a mys­ti­cal old hag when he and his fam­ily move into a grand, ante­bel­lum South­ern man­sion. Soon the prophecy comes true, and Alexan­der is knee-deep in a mys­tery involv­ing witch­craft, fright­en­ing visions from the past, a lost for­tune in dia­monds, a crazed care­taker with mur­der on his mind, and vis­i­ta­tions by the ghost of a young girl who has been haunt­ing the man­sion since her mur­der dur­ing the days of the Civil War!

More stuff and things!