# Dennis the Menace (1993 film)

Dennis the Menace (released in the United Kingdom as Dennis to avoid confusion with the British comic strip Dennis the Menace and Gnasher) is a 1993 American comedy film based on the Hank Ketcham comic strip. It is directed by Nick Castle, written and co-produced by John Hughes and distributed by Warner Bros. under its Family Entertainment label.
The plot concerns the misadventures of a mischievous child (Mason Gamble) who menaces his next door neighbor George Wilson (Walter Matthau), usually hangs out with his friends Joey McDonald (Kellen Hathaway) and Margaret Wade (Amy Sakasitz), and is followed everywhere by his dog Ruff. Jeannie Russell, who plays Margaret in the 1959–1963 TV series, makes a cameo appearance.
Released in the United States on June 25, 1993, the film was a commercial success, grossing $117.2 million on a $35 million budget. Critical reviews were generally negative. A direct-to-video standalone sequel called Dennis the Menace Strikes Again was released in 1998 with a new cast. A second sequel, A Dennis the Menace Christmas, was released in 2007 with a third cast.

## Plot

Five-year-old Dennis Mitchell is a constant source of mischief, especially with his retired next-door neighbor George Wilson. One day, George pretends to be asleep to avoid Dennis, who mistakes this for illness and shoots an aspirin into his mouth with a slingshot. Dennis's parents Henry and Alice learn of the incident, and are both dismayed about it, but they can't immediately deal with it, as they both have to work, so they leave Dennis with his best friend Joey McDonald at the home of their impetuous classmate Margaret Wade, much to Dennis's dismay. Despite Dennis and Joey's dislike of Margaret, the three work together to fix up an abandoned treehouse in the woods. Meanwhile, itinerant bandit Switchblade Sam arrives in town and robs them of an apple and of Margaret's china doll.
While vacuuming spilled paint in the garage, Dennis inadvertently shoots a glob of it onto George's barbecue grill; tasting it, he suspects Dennis. Henry and Alice leave Dennis with a teenaged babysitter named Polly, who invites her boyfriend Mickey to visit while sitting. Sneaking outside, Dennis pranks them by ringing the doorbell and hiding until Mickey tapes a thumbtack to it. George investigates the vacuum in the Mitchells' garage and accidentally shoots himself in the buttocks with a golf ball. Hoping to confront the Mitchells, George rings the doorbell, but pricks his thumb on the tack, and Polly and Mickey, mistaking him for the prankster, douse George with water and flour, much to the amusement of George's wife, Martha. Switchblade Sam commits a string of robberies throughout town, and is noticed by Chief Bennett, who subtly advises him to leave town.
Dennis plays with George's dentures, loses the two front incisors, and replaces them with Chiclets before George has his picture taken for the local newspaper. Henry and Alice both have to go on business trips, but cannot find anyone willing to babysit Dennis, except Martha, who is happy to treat Dennis as the child who they never had. George, however, is infuriated that Dennis has replaced his nasal spray with mouthwash and the latter with toilet cleaner. Dennis lets his dog Ruff in the Wilsons' house, leading George to mistake him for Martha. In the attic, Dennis's carelessness causes George to slip on mothballs.
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 the garage door button, and it opens and upends the entire dessert table, much to George's fury. While the Wilsons and their guests await the flower's nocturnal display, Switchblade Sam robs their house, stealing George's antique gold coin collection. Dennis, who heard him and discovers the empty safe, alerts George of the crime, distracting everyone from the flower's brief blooming, after which it dies. Furious and unaware that he has been robbed, George coldly chastises Dennis, who flees to the woods and is abducted by Switchblade Sam. Henry and Alice arrive home to learn that he has disappeared, prompting a townwide search. Even a guilt-ridden George sets out to look for him after realizing that Dennis was telling the truth about the robbery.
Switchblade Sam prepares to leave town with Dennis as an unsuspecting hostage, but grows annoyed with Dennis's constant talking. Showing Sam the proper way to tie him up, Dennis handcuffs Sam, loses the key, unintentionally bludgeons him multiple times, and sets him on fire. As Dennis discovers George's stolen coins and realizes that Switchblade Sam is a thief, Sam attempts to stab Dennis but is snared in a rope that is caught by a passing train and stabbed in the buttocks by his own knife, subduing him too much to do anything further.
The next morning, Dennis returns home with the captured Switchblade Sam and George's recovered coins, to the relief of George and the whole town. Switchblade Sam is arrested, and Dennis naïvely returns his knife. Sam attempts to stab Dennis again, but Chief Bennett accidentally closes the police car door on his hand, causing him to drop his knife into the storm drain and wince in pain before being driven away, with all the neighborhood children taunting him.
The Wilsons and Mitchells make amends, and Alice mentions that she will not be traveling for work anymore, and can bring Dennis to work with her because her office now has a day-care center. George and Martha insist that they would be happy to watch Dennis, right before Dennis accidentally flings a flaming marshmallow onto George's forehead.
During the credits, Dennis unwittingly causes Alice's egotistical co-worker to be caught in the copying machine, and have her agonized face be copied multiple times.

## Cast

* Mason Gamble as Dennis Mitchell
* Walter Matthau as George Wilson
* Joan Plowright as Martha Wilson
* Christopher Lloyd as Switchblade Sam
* Lea Thompson as Alice Mitchell
* Robert Stanton as Henry Mitchell
* Amy Sakasitz as Margaret Wade
* Kellen Hathaway as Joey McDonald
* Paul Winfield as Chief Bennett
* Natasha Lyonne as Polly
* Devin Ratray as Mickey
* Hank Johnston as Gunther Beckman
* Melinda Mullins as Andrea
* Billie Bird as Edith Butterwell
* Bill Erwin as Edward Little
* Arnold Stang as Photographer
* Ben Stein as Boss
* Jeannie Russell as Neighbor

## Production

Production president Terry Semel wanted Tim Burton to direct the film, but executive producer Ernest Chambers rejected the idea and hired John Hughes as writer and producer, based on his work on the Home Alone films. Hughes hired Patrick Read Johnson to direct the film after seeing Spaced Invaders; but Johnson left after having "creative differences" with Hughes, and Nick Castle was hired to replace him. Mason Gamble won the role of Dennis Mitchell after beating out a reported 20,000 children who had auditioned for it.
The film premiered on June 25, 1993. It is known as simply Dennis in the United Kingdom to avoid confusion with an unrelated British comic strip, also called Dennis the Menace, which 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. The short-lived label Big Screen Records released an album of Goldsmith's score that coincided with 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 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 and His Orchestra.

## Release

Dennis the Menace was released theatrically on June 25, 1993.

### Home media

On October 26, 1993, four months and one day after its theatrical release, Dennis the Menace was released on VHS, Beta, 8mm and CX LaserDisc by Warner Home Video in the United States and Canada. On its release, the VHS cassette of the film came with promotional tie-ins for up to $8 in consumer mail-in rebate coupons from Crush, Nintendo through Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy, and Ocean Software.
The film was reissued on VHS as part of the Warner Bros. 75th Anniversary Collection in 1998, the Century Collection in 1999, the Century 2000 Collection in 2000, and the Warner Spotlight Collection in 2001.
On January 28, 2003, the film was released on a "Special Edition" VHS and DVD, with bonus features, including a "making-of" featurette, the television special A Menace Named Dennis, and trailers of both the film and its direct-to-video sequel, Dennis the Menace Strikes Again.

## Reception
### Box office

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, for a total of $117.3 million worldwide, despite generally mixed-to-negative reviews from film critics. In Germany, it grossed more than $5 million from 800,000 admissions in its first 10 days, and was number one at the box office for three weeks.

### Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, Dennis the Menace 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." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 49 out of 100, based on 25 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A-" on a scale of A+ to F.
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 Alone' movies", adding, "Mr. Hughes and Mr. Castle try hard to recreate a kind of timeless, idealized comic strip atmosphere, but except for the performances of Lea Thompson and Robert Stanton, who play Henry and Alice, 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":
   The “Dennis” comic strip, early ‘60s TV show and currently syndicated animated series all opt for an Everytown U.S.A. blandness—pipsqueak rebellion in a ‘50s time warp. The movie, directed by Nick Castle from Hughes’ script, is still caught up in that warp (with a few concessions, like the fact that both Henry and Alice now work). This means that Dennis doesn’t get into any high-tech shenanigans. No computers, no video games, no laser guns. The film pretty much sticks to the old-fashioned basics [and] since this Dennis is only 5 years old, perhaps the decision was made to keep things slapstick-simple. Or could it be that the filmmakers regard Dennis as a “classic"—like, say, Huck Finn or Penrod?
   This sort of misplaced reverence probably won’t do much for young audiences accustomed to a little more zap and bounce in their heroes. Parents might be grateful, though. The shenanigans in "Dennis the Menace" are mostly so mildly conceived and executed that kids aren’t likely to try them out on their families when they get home from the theater. Mom and Dad won’t have to lock up the frying pans.
   If Hughes was expecting this film to create another pipsqueak franchise for him, he may have miscalculated. "Dennis the Menace" seems more like a rest period in between Culkin-ized tantrums. It’s not much—just one goofy little foul-up after another—but its lack of crassness is rather sweet.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 2½ stars out of 4, 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 spawned a platforming video game for the Amiga, Super NES, and Game Boy platforms. It includes stages based on Mr. Wilson's house, the great outdoors, and a boiler room, among others.

## Sequels

John Hughes stated that he was interested in writing a sequel, but only on the condition of Walter Matthau returning as Mr. Wilson. In September 1992, before the first film was released, Matthau revealed that he was already signed for the sequel. In November 1996, it was reported that Dennis the Menace II was still being developed for Matthau, with the possibility of production starting after Grumpiest Old Men. In September 1997, Don Rickles was announced as replacing Matthau in the role of Mr. Wilson, which may have spurred from the lack of confidence that Warner Bros. felt in Grumpiest Old Men following the underperformance of My Fellow Americans, a film starring Jack Lemmon and James Garner from which Matthau withdrew in favor of The Odd Couple II at Paramount Pictures.
A direct-to-video standalone sequel called Dennis the Menace Strikes Again was released in 1998 with a new cast. A second sequel, A Dennis the Menace Christmas, was released in 2007 with a third cast.