The Water Babies

This enchanting children's film mixes live action and animated underwater sequences to tell the story of Tom (Tommy Pender), the 12-year-old apprentice to veteran chimney sweep Grimes (James Mason), who tends to hit the bottle. When the youngster is wrongly accused of stealing, he flees and leaps into a pool. There he encounters an assortment of underwater characters and rescues the water babies--children being held captive by an eel and a shark--before returning to dry land cleared of any wrongdoing. The animation is average, but kids will get a kick out of Tom's adventures.