Labyrinth (film) - Influences

Influences

Labyrinth features allusions to a range of literary and filmic sources, many of which were recognized by contemporary reviewers. Richard Corliss noted that the film appeared to have been influenced by The Wizard of Oz and the works of Maurice Sendak, writing that "Labyrinth lures a modern Dorothy Gale out of the drab Kansas of real life into a land where the wild things are." Nina Darnton wrote that the plot of Labyrinth "is very similar to Outside Over There by Mr. Sendak, in which 9-year-old Ida's baby sister is stolen by the goblins." Copies of Outside Over There and Where the Wild Things Are are shown briefly in Sarah's room at the start of the film. The film also features an end credit stating that "Jim Henson acknowledges his debt to the works of Maurice Sendak".

The film's concept designer Brian Froud has stated that the character of Jareth was influenced by a diverse range of literary sources. In his afterword to The Goblins of Labyrinth, Froud wrote that Jareth references "the romantic figures of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights and a brooding Rochester from Jane Eyre" and the Scarlet Pimpernel. Bowie's costumes were intentionally eclectic, drawing on the image of Marlon Brando's leather jacket from The Wild One as well as that of a knight "with the worms of death eating through his armour" from the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm.

The dialogue starting with "you remind me of the babe" that occurs between Jareth and the goblins in the Magic Dance sequence in the film is a direct reference to an exchange between Cary Grant and Shirley Temple in the 1947 film The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer.