Bosley Crowther, in The New York Times, criticized the film's ``romantic nonsense and sentiment'', the children's ``artificial roles'', and Robert Wise's ``cosy-cum-corny'' direction. Judith Crist, in a biting review in the New York Herald Tribune, dismissed the movie as ``icky sticky'' and designed for ``the five to seven set and their mommies''. In her review for McCall's magazine, Pauline Kael called the film ``the sugar-coated lie people seem to want to eat'', and that audiences have ``turned into emotional and aesthetic imbeciles when we hear ourselves humming the sickly, goody-goody songs''.
Judith Crist
Pauline Kael