The Wind in the Willows (1996 film)

Mole's underground home is caved in when the meadow above is crushed by a steam shovel driven by Weasels. The Water Rat takes Mole to see Mr. Toad, who encourages them to join them in his new horse-drawn caravan. After a motor car frightens the horse and the caravan tips over, Toad becomes infatuated with motoring. He is a terrible driver and funds his cars with loans from the Weasels; their vindictive Chief blackmails him to sell Toad Hall.

After an encounter with Weasels in the Wild Wood, Toad, Rat, and Mole end up in Mr. Badger's underground house. Badger attempts to quell Toad's obsession with cars, but Toad refuses to listen and is ultimately arrested for stealing and crashing a motor-car outside a pub. During Toad's trial, the Chief Weasel poses as a rabbit and manipulates the Jury into giving a guilty verdict. After Toad insults the Court and tries to escape, the Judge gives him a hundred-year sentence in a castle dungeon.

Back at Toad Hall, Rat and Mole are evicted by the Weasels, who have taken Toad Hall for themselves. They tunnel under the castle to free Toad, who is assisted by the jailer's daughter and her sardonic tea lady aunt. Toad, Rat, and Mole board Engine No. 592, thanks to the engine driver's help of letting them ride on the footplate. The police, who have stowed away on the carriages behind the engine, demand that the train be stopped by waving furiously at Ratty, Moley, and the driver on the engine, much to Toad's fearing terror. As the engine goes to see what the police want and tries to stop the train, Toad confesses the truth and begs the driver to help him evade his captors about arresting him for stealing motorcars. Feeling sympathetic of what Toad says is true, the driver agrees to help as the police shoot the paint on his engine. Angered, he tosses coal from his engine's tender at the police, but fails to dodge a mail catcher, which catches him and ends up holding him from his train. Toad takes control of the train by pulling the accelerator to speed the engine up, and as Mole accidentally uncouples the coaches, he and Rat are left far behind with the coaches as the police hit a tunnel and hold on for dear life, Toad eventually derails the engine, and having survived the accident from the wreckage of the engine, sets off again, but is abducted by the Weasels.

The full extent of the Weasel's plans are now revealed: they have built a dog-food factory over the remains of Mole's abode and are planning to blow up Toad Hall and build a slaughterhouse in its place, with which they will turn all of the peaceful Riverbankers into dog food. They have also damaged the area near to Badger's home, which provokes him into wanting revenge against them. Badger and Rat attempt to infiltrate Toad Hall disguised as weasels, but are discovered. Along with Toad, they are placed over the factory's mincing machine. The Chief, Clarence and Geoffrey return to Toad Hall to prepare the victory celebration, leaving St. John in charge of the machine. Mole, who has broken into the factory, disables the machine allowing Toad, Badger and Rat to escape.

In a premature sense of victory, Clarence and Geoffrey attempt to murder their Chief using a birthday cake. Clarence and Geoffrey begin to fight each other for leadership, with the other Weasels drunkenly taking sides. This distraction allows the protagonists to stage a raid on the house, leaving all of the Weasels incapacitated in the ensuing fight. It turns out that the Chief has survived the coup against his life. Toad attempts to stop him from reaching the factory, which contains the detonator to blow up Toad Hall, to no avail. Unbeknownst to both of them, the explosives are actually in the factory (Rat had switched the labels on the explosive's containers earlier, leading the Weasels to believe the explosives were actually bone supplies for the factory), and as such the Chief blows himself up along with the factory, leaving Toad Hall intact and Toad's friends alive.

Afterwards, Toad makes a public speech swearing off motor cars and promising to be more mature and less selfish in the future. Mole's home has been repaired. However, Toad is seen secretly talking to an airplane salesman, which shows that he has only moved on to a new craze. Toad flies over the crowd in his new plane, causing mass hysteria and a disappointed Badger swears never to help Toad again. During the end credits, Toad flies across the country and eventually over the sea.

• "Messing About On The River" (Tony Hatch) – sung at the beginning by Rat, as he and Mole set out for a picnic on the river
• "Secret of Survival" – sung by the Weasels, explaining that they're only out for themselves
• "Mr. Toad" – sung by Toad, with lyrics taken directly from the novel, split into three sections (one covering his escape from Toad Hall, one during his trial and one after the train crash with SE&CR C Class 0-6-0 tender engine No. 592)
• "Friends Is What We Is" – sung by Toad, Badger, Mole and Rat, as they drive the Weasels out of Toad Hall and during the party at the end
• "Miracle of Friends" – the song played during the end credits

The Wind in the Willows was produced by Allied Filmmakers. Most of the then-living members of the Monty Python comedy troupe heavily participated in the film: Jones and Idle play major roles as Mr. Toad and Rat, but Cleese and Palin have minor roles, as Toad's inept defence lawyer and a sardonic talking Sun, respectively, who occasionally chastises Toad for his reckless behaviour, and briefly speaks to Ratty and Mole. Terry Gilliam was asked to voice "The River", but filming conflicts with 12 Monkeys kept him from doing so. Perhaps, as a result, "The River" only has one instance of dialogue - he is shown with a mouth and sings a couple of lines of the first song.

When the film first appeared in the U.S. under its original title, it was pushed aside due to distributors' problems giving it a mere late 1997 limited release and very little promotion was published. Takings in the UK had been low due to largely only afternoon screenings.[3] Subsequently, New York publications wondered why such a wonderful children's film was dumped by distributors. The Times published a very positive review by Lawrence Van Gelder.[4]

In 1998, however, Disney released the film on VHS and later on DVD in 2004, but they changed the title to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, to tie into their theme park ride at Disneyland (the Disney World version of which closed that year).

At the time of the US release, Jones, who was working on a documentary in New York, was told by telephone that the film was being shown in a cinema in Times Square. Jones rushed down to the square only to discover that the cinema was "one of those seedy little porno theatres."[3]

• The Wind in the Willows at IMDb
• The Wind in the Willows at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Wind in the Willows at AllMovie