SYNOPSICS
The Real Tom Thumb: History's Smallest Superstar (2014) is a English movie. Ian Denyer has directed this movie. Michael Grade,Rachel Adams,Peter Bazalgette,David Burder are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2014. The Real Tom Thumb: History's Smallest Superstar (2014) is considered one of the best Documentary movie in India and around the world.
Michael Grade reveals the extraordinary and utterly unique story of General Tom Thumb, the world's first global show business celebrity. Just 31 inches tall, he went from humble beginnings in America to international superstardom, eventually performing on stage before over 50 million people, including President Lincoln and a devoted Queen Victoria. Yet Tom Thumb didn't choose his own career and his selling point was his disability. Is this story one of success or exploitation? And why do we remain just as fascinated by performers with unusual bodies? As an impresario and lifelong entertainment devotee Michael sets out to follow the remarkable life of Tom Thumb (real name Charles Stratton) from his discovery aged four by the legendary showman PT Barnum to his setting out on the first ever show business world tour. The journey takes him to New York and across snowy New England, then back to the UK to discover how adored Stratton was by the British public. It features exquisite hand-made...
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The Real Tom Thumb: History's Smallest Superstar (2014) Reviews
Another One of the Ex-Television Executive's Showbiz Quests
Since retiring from a series of highly-paid jobs as a television executive - including running London Weekend Television and BBC One - Michael Grade has carved out a career as a documentary presenter, focusing mostly on showbiz topics. To date he has presented programs on the London Palladium, musicals and the fight for television ratings. In THE REAL TOM THUMB he tells a story close to his heart - that of the diminutive American performer from an unprepossessing background who shot to stardom in the mid-nineteenth century, working for P. T. Barnum and subsequently as an independent performer. This classic rags-to-riches story enables Grade to explore the positive and negative sides of show-business: how it can elevate and dethrone individuals in a matter of months; a source of untold riches and crashing poverty; and a world of innate companionship and self- interest. Tom Thumb had both of these character-traits; if he had not possessed them, he wouldn't have become such a superstar. The subject also provides a pretext for Grade to explore a business he knows a lot about; his uncle was the impresario and television mogul Lew Grade, while his father Leslie Grade worked as an impresario in both the variety and legitimate theaters. What we are witnessing in this documentary is an essay in theatrical autobiography through historical narration. Structurally speaking, the documentary is perhaps half-an-hour too long; much the same could have been said about Thumb's career in a sixty-minute rather than a ninety-minute slot. Nonetheless it does provide an opportunity for Grade to visit iconic New York locations, and hence emphasize the travelogue element of the enterprise.