Dennis the Menace (film)

Dennis the Menace is a 1993 American family comedy film based on the Hank Ketcham comic strip of the same name. The film was directed by Nick Castle and written and co-produced by John Hughes, and distributed by Warner Bros. under their Family Entertainment label. "Dennis the Menace" 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. The film also features a cameo appearance by Jeannie Russell who was a cast member on the original television show.
Released on June 25, 1993, "Dennis the Menace" 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 different cast from both first and second films.
Plot.
Five-year-old Dennis Mitchell is a constant source of mischief, especially to his retired next-door neighbor George Wilson. George pretends to be asleep to avoid Dennis, who mistakes this for illness and shoots an aspirin into George’s mouth with a slingshot. Dennis’ parents Henry and Alice try to discipline him as they get ready for work, and leave him with his friend Joey at the home of their classmate Margaret, whom the boys dislike. As the three children fix up an abandoned treehouse in the woods, itinerant criminal Switchblade Sam arrives in town.
Vacuuming up paint in the garage, Dennis inadvertently shoots a glob of paint onto George’s barbecue grill; tasting the paint, George suspects Dennis. The Mitchells leave Dennis with teenage babysitter Polly, who invites her boyfriend Mickey over. Sneaking outside, Dennis pranks Polly and Mickey by ringing the doorbell and hiding until they tape a thumbtack to the doorbell. George investigates the vacuum in the Mitchells’ garage and 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 bath water and flour. Switchblade Sam commits a string of robberies throughout town, and is noticed by the Chief of Police.
Bringing the sleeping George an apology card, Dennis plays with George’s dentures and loses the two front teeth, replacing them with Chiclets just before George has his picture taken for the local newspaper. Alice and Henry both leave on business trips, but are unable to find anyone willing to babysit Dennis. George’s wife Martha agrees to let Dennis stay with them, happy to treat him as the child they never had. George is infuriated by falling in Dennis' spilled bath water, and discovering Dennis has replaced his nasal spray with mouthwash and his mouthwash with toilet cleaner. Dennis lets his dog Ruff inside the Wilsons’ house, leading George to mistake Ruff for Martha in the dark. In the attic, Dennis' carelessness causes George to slip on mothballs and nearly crushes him with 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 that night. During the party, Dennis presses a black button that opens the garage door, which upends the entire table of desserts, and is angrily sent inside. While the Wilsons and their guests await the flower’s nocturnal display, Switchblade Sam robs the house, stealing George’s collection of antique coins. Dennis alerts the party, distracting everyone from the brief blooming of the flower, which then dies. Furious, George castigates Dennis, who flees to the woods in sadness and is caught by Switchblade Sam. Dennis’ parents arrive home to learn he has disappeared, prompting a town-wide search, and even a guilt-ridden George sets out to find him after realizing that Dennis was telling the truth about the robbery.
Switchblade Sam prepares to leave town with Dennis as an unsuspecting hostage. Showing Sam the proper way to tie him up, Dennis handcuffs his captor, loses the key, and unintentionally bludgeons him and sets him on fire. Just as Dennis discovers George’s stolen coins and realizes Sam is a thief, Sam attempts to stab Dennis but is snared in a rope caught by a passing train. The next morning, Dennis returns home with the captured Sam, to the relief of George and the entire neighborhood. Sam is arrested, and Dennis naïvely returns his switchblade where he attempts to stab him with it, but Chief Bennett closes the police car door on Sam’s hand that he drops the knife down the drain and winces in pain before being driven away.
Dennis and George make amends, and Alice mentions that she can bring Dennis to work with her as her office now has a daycare center. George insists he would be happy to watch Dennis himself, just as Dennis accidentally flings a flaming marshmallow onto George's forehead. During the credits, Dennis gets his mother's condescending coworker Andrea caught in the office photocopier.
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, the film 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 ' movies," adding that "Mr. Hughes and Mr. Castle try hard to re-create a kind of timeless, idealized comic-strip atmosphere, but except for the performances of Lea Thompson and Robert Stanton, who play Dennis's parents, 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": 
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. Wilson's house, the great outdoors, and a boiler room among others.