Darby O'Gill and the Little People/Trivia

Trivia

 * With the death of Kieron Moore (Pony Sugrue) on July 15, 2007, Sean Connery (Michael MacBride) is the film's last surviving cast member.
 * This was the film that brought Sean Connery to the attention of Albert R. Broccoli, who then went on to cast Connery in his most famous role as James Bond in Dr. No (1962).
 * In the original release, there were numerous asides where the Irish characters would speak in Munster Irsh. Darby O'Gill counts off "aon, dó, trí, ceathair" before playing the Fox Chase; several times King Brian rallies the hunt with a cry of "Ar aghaidh linn!" (Ahead with us!) and so on. A later version had most of these lines redubbed in English.
 * The leprechaun effects look very high tech and complicated, but most of them were achieved very simply by placing the "normal-sized" actors closer to the camera than the "tiny" ones, and lining them up on the same horizontal plane through the lens so the distance between them could not be detected. This technique is known as "forced perspective".
 * Walt Disney had seen Albert Sharpe in a stage production of "Finian's Rainbow" in the 1940s and kept him in mind for the role of Darby. By the time he began casting this film a decade later, Sharpe had retired. Disney was able to convince him to come out of retirement.
 * The lighting used to make sure the actors were kept in proper perspective without seeming false used up so much electricity it apparently blew out a substation in Burbank when the lights were turned on without warning.
 * The movie was released one year after the copyrights expired on the stories by Herminie Templeton Kavanagh.
 * Walt Disney visited Ireland in December of 1948 and publicly announced the production of this film, then entitled simply, "The Little People". It would be another decade before the film was actually made.
 * The film was released on a bill with the Donald Duck cartoon "Donald in Mathmagic Land" (1959).
 * Walt Disney was initially hoping to cast Barry Fitzgerald in the dual roles of Darby O'Gill and King Brian. Fitzgerald reportedly declined due to his advanced age (although his eventual replacement as Darby, Albert Sharpe, was three years his senior). Disney regretted the loss of Fitzgerald in the lead role, and blamed the film's disappointing box-office performance partly on this loss.
 * Walt Disney started planning for this movie in the 1940s. After World War II, Disney sent several artists to Ireland for background material.