Jack and the Beanstalk, film version, a 1952 adaptation of the folk tale directed by Jean Yarbrough and starring the comedy team of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Beyond the requisite Hollywood love story, the movie explores imagination and acting through the unrestrained childlike behaviour of Costello, who plays Jack, an adult ‘problem child’. In the story of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’, which a child reads to him, Jack acts the part of the giant killer and imagines the power and social acceptance that he cannot achieve in reality. In the end, play and fantasy give way to the real world of adult authority.
— Donald Haase
