Fairy Tale Friday--Honest Fairy Tales--Snow White (song by Kristin Key)

 Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I'll begin.

Today marks the last of the Fairy Tale Friday explorations of Snow White. I have been writing about versions of this tale since the 3rd of April 2020 and now the time has come to wind it down. Thank you for coming with me on this journey (as well as Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Murder Ballads before this.) 

I will leave you with a funny video in the Key of Kristin. Here is Kristin Key who summarises everything that is wrong with Snow White set to a jaunty tune. 

Thank you again for coming with me as we explore fairy tales. My life has gotten really busy with some other writing I am doing (I am working on some short story bundles to sell as well as my next novel) and so I am going to let Fairy Tale Friday rest for a bit to catch up on other creative endeavours. But I am sure in 2021 I will come back to explore another fairy tale--possibly Sleeping Beauty. 

Thanks! 

Heather

Fairy Tale Friday--Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney, 1937)

Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

We are to the end of our Fairy Tale Friday look at Snow White. Today we will look at the 1937 Disney film. Chronologically, it should have come earlier, but I wanted to save it for last due to its significance. For many of you, this film was the gateway to a Disney obsession. While I can agree it was visually spectacular (and it truly is—when you think of all those choppy/jerky Betty Boop cartoons, they were only a few years before this) I have never liked the passivity of the heroine waiting (and doing nothing but housework and sighing) until her Prince comes.

The following information all comes courtesy of Wikipedia:

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was to be the first full-length cel animated feature in motion picture history. His brother and wife tried to talk Walt out of it. He had to mortgage his house to help finance the film's production, which eventually ran up a total cost of $1,488,422.74, a massive sum for a feature film in 1937. But it clearly was worth it as it was a massive success.

The film itself was released in Los Angeles in 1937, followed by a nationwide release on February 4, 1938. This was one year before The Wizard of Oz. Some interesting Oz trivia: The voice of Snow White Adriana Caselotti had an uncredited role in The Wizard of Oz. She provided the voice of Juliet during the Tin Man's song, "If I Only Had a Heart", speaking the line, "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" More Oz trivia: (because I will shoehorn Oz into any conversion) the slinky wicked queen in her cowl and crown was an early costume design for the witch in Oz based on the success of Snow White. Gale Sondergaard did a screentest as a slinky sexy witch but opted out when they decided to make her ugly.  

It was nominated for Best Musical Score at the Academy Awards in 1938, and the following year,  Walt Disney was awarded an honorary Oscar for the film. This award was unique, consisting of one normal-sized, plus seven miniature Oscar statuettes.  

In 1989, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected it as one of the first 25 films for preservation in the National Film Registry. Whether I like it or not, it is a game changer. 

Another bit of interesting trivia: The dwarfs’ names were chosen from a pool of about fifty potentials, including Jumpy, Deafy, Dizzey, Hickey, Wheezy, Baldy, Gabby, Nifty, Sniffy, Swift, Lazy, Puffy, Stuffy, Tubby, Shorty, and Burpy.

Below is a summery courtesy of Wiki. I will insert comments and video clips into it.

Snow White is a lonely princess living with her stepmother, a vain Queen. The Queen worries that Snow White will be more beautiful than her, so she forces Snow White to work as a scullery maid and asks her Magic Mirror daily "who is the fairest one of all." For years the mirror always answers that the Queen is, pleasing her. Note: I admit I did not re-watch this one in its entirety, but I have no memory as to where her father is meant to be. I presume dead. The film opens with an illuminated manuscript which basically says exactly what Wiki does above but mentions her father not at all.  

One day, the Magic Mirror informs the Queen that Snow White is now "the fairest" in the land; on that same day, Snow White meets and falls in love with a prince who overhears her singing. Note: I do remember being in awe of the mirror but think Snow White herself was a bit of a drip.

Watch the Magic Mirror scene here: 

Here we also see Snow White in her very ragged dress (well done) and a pair of rough wooden clogs that don't make a clip clop noise which annoyed me. She is so good and sickly sweet it made me feel like I might go into a diabetic coma. Also all those pigeons would be crapping all over her wishing well if this was real. She does seem to have quite a lot of lippy on but then so does the Prince. 

The jealous Queen orders her Huntsman to take Snow White into the forest and kill her. She further demands that the huntsman return with Snow White's heart in a jewelled box as proof of the deed. However, the Huntsman cannot bring himself to kill Snow White. He tearfully begs for her forgiveness, revealing the Queen wants her dead and urges her to flee into the woods and never look back. Note:  I liked that the Queen presented the Huntsman with a box with a heart with a dagger through it for a lock that she must have either just had laying about as a sinister object or had it specially made for just such an occasion as this. 

It is nice to see the Huntsman’s reluctance. Several films, he is in cahoots with the Queen (or under her spell sexually) It does feel very sinister seeing the sunlight glint off his knife and his shadow fall over her as he creeps up to kill her. The lost in the woods scene also made an impression on me as a child. I found it very frightening and disconcerting.  

Watch it here: 

What I noticed from re-watching this scene is that she has changed clothes. She has been a scullery maid in literal rags with wooden clodhoppers on her feet but a moment ago, but to go out and pick flowers in the woods she gets spiffed up in the dress we think of as a Snow White dress (no holes) and heeled shoes (no clogs). That makes no sense. 

 Lost and frightened, the princess is befriended by woodland creatures who lead her to a cottage deep in the woods. Finding seven small chairs in the cottage's dining room, Snow White assumes the cottage is the untidy home of seven orphaned children. Actually, the cottage belongs to seven adult dwarfs—named Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Dopey—who work in a nearby mine. Note: Here we have the famous Heigh-Ho song. Many years ago we had a cassette of weird and wonderful cover versions of Disney Songs and there was a great, gritty cover of the Heigh-Ho song by Tom Waits. (would you expect anything less?) Listen to it below:

 

 Returning home, they are alarmed to find their cottage clean and suspect that an intruder has invaded their home. The dwarfs find Snow White upstairs, asleep across three of their beds. Snow White awakens to find the dwarfs at her bedside and introduces herself, and all of the dwarfs eventually welcome her into their home after she offers to clean and cook for them. Snow White keeps house for the dwarfs while they mine for jewels during the day, and at night they all sing, play music, and dance. Note: I know cooking and cleaning are important, but why does it all fall to her? Their house was a mess when she arrived and then they happily go on being lazy now that they had a dolly bird to pick up after them. Even as a child I felt like she aught to make them do their share of the work since they lived there too. Also as a child you think "wouldn't it be great to have woodland animals help you do your chore," but as you get older all you think is, "that is so unsanitary." 

Watch Whistle While You Work here:

Meanwhile, the Queen discovers Snow White is alive when the mirror again answers that Snow White is the fairest in the land and reveals that the heart in the box is that of a pig. Using a potion to disguise herself as an old hag, the Queen creates a poisoned apple that will put whoever eats it into the "Sleeping Death," a curse she learns can only be broken by "love's first kiss," but is certain Snow White will be buried alive. Note: I find this scene genuinely scary, even now. I have seen many transformation scenes, but this is one of the best. I love the way the spell was cast--both with witchy stuff and science (she has a whole chemistry lab in her lair). I love the bit in the transformation where her hands grow old and a flash of lightning reveals the bones inside for a brief moment. Also, the way lightning makes the potion go from still to sparkling made me laugh.

Watch (and shudder) here:

While the Queen goes to the cottage while the dwarfs are away, the animals are wary of her and rush off to find the dwarfs. Faking a potential heart attack, the Queen tricks Snow White into bringing her into the cottage to rest. The Queen fools Snow White into biting into the poisoned apple under the pretence that it is a magic apple that grants wishes. As Snow White falls asleep, the Queen proclaims that she is now the fairest of the land. Note: Trust the animals. They can see through her disguise and try to peck her death in a scene reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock. The thing that made me laugh out loud though, was in between all the fuzzy forest creatures there were a pair of vultures sitting in a tree. Then the old hag pulls a Sanford and Son, and clutches her chest and fakes a heart attack.  Snow White is so gullible here and simple-minded, it makes my head hurt. The old hag is clearly using her evil voice in between bouts of her old helpless lady voice, but our heroine does not pick up on those subtle clues. 

Watch the poison apple bit here:

 The dwarfs return with the animals as the Queen leaves the cottage and give chase, trapping her on a cliff. She tries to roll a boulder over them, but lightning strikes the cliff before she can do so, causing her to fall to her death. Note: Though I am all for restorative justice in my real life, I find I really like a sense of punishment and justice in my fairy tales. This is a great “gets what is coming to her” ending. The vultures are here again and she runs away, gets trapped on a conveniently place cliff top situated in running distance of the forest, and tries to use leverage to release a boulder down on the dwarfs below. Instead, lightning cracks her cliff and she falls into the abyss with the boulder falling on her instead like Wile E Coyote. 

The dwarfs return to their cottage and find Snow White seemingly dead, being kept in a deathlike slumber by the poison. Unwilling to bury her out of sight in the ground, they instead place her in a glass coffin trimmed with gold in a clearing in the forest. Together with the woodland creatures, they keep watch over her. A year later, the prince learns of her eternal sleep and visits her coffin. Saddened by her apparent death, he kisses her, which breaks the spell and awakens her. The dwarfs and animals all rejoice as the Prince takes Snow White to his castle.

Watch the ending here: 

That is the last of the Snow Whites. However, I will treat you next week to one last Snow White. A hilarious comedy song I stumbled across whilst writing this last post. Stay tuned next week for death by fruit.

 

Fairy Tale Friday--Snow White and the Huntsman (Charlize Theron, 2012)

Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

We are nearly to the end of our Fairy Tale Friday look at Snow White. Today we look at what was advertised to be a feminist film version of our tale entitled Snow White and the Huntsman starring Kristin Stewart as Snow White and Charlize Theron as the stepmother.

I can see why they promoted it as a feminist film—they tried to make it have overtones of women in power but in my opinion, it misses the mark. It opens with the powerful witch Ravenna (who sounds like she should have raven hair, but she is blond) tricking her way into the King’s heart. We see her tied up in a shack as if she is being held prisoner, but it is in fact all a ruse. The first glimpse we see of her is her bare foot in a shackle. My first thought was “How big are her feet??” and the answer is (according to Google) size 9.5 which feels very impressive since I am a size 3.5. But once she is back in the palace and all dressed up and out of her captive rags, she looks quite beautiful. She seems quite sweet, with a hint of nervousness as if she is worried what the country will think of her as she was only a poor captive who is marrying the King. This, in my opinion, in Theron’s best acting. Because on their wedding night she goes full on “evil voice” and announces that all men do is use, abuse and discard women. That happened to her before and she won’t let it happen again. Then she pulls out a huge bloody dagger and stabs him in the heart and she locks the young Princess in a dungeon. After that, Theron is either doing her whisper evil voice or shouty evil voice. It is a wonder she stayed so slim with all the scenery she chewed. Some of the makeup and effects are pretty good. We see her in various stages of old age makeup as her powers wax and wane. Sometimes she is young and fresh and bathing in some sort of milky liquid that looks suspiciously like paint and stealing the looks of young girls (played by Lily Cole) and sometimes she is all wrinkled and writhing on the floor in a weakened state of misery. The magic mirror was also interesting—a brass disc that turned into the melty men who oozed out of it and spoke to her.

Kristin Stewart who has been held in a dungeon for at least a decade and has lank greasy hairy and a dirty face and a tatty dress also has the most perfect blindingly white Hollywood teeth which were really distracting. All the dwarves (we will get to the problem with them in a minute) have various shades of “lived in” teeth. But she who has been held prisoner, suffers no decay. In the scenes where she has escaped and is getting increasingly muddier and dishevelled she still manages a subtle bit of lipstick. If her lips had been that shade the whole film you might think it was just rosy lips not lippy, but because several times she doesn’t have it on it is noticeable.

The problem with the dwarves is that they hired actual dwarves to do all the body shots (who were uncredited in the credits) and CGI’d full sized actor’s heads onto their bodies. ‘Nuff said.

Here is a summary by Wikipedia in which I will insert some comments.

While admiring a rose blooming in the winter, Queen Eleanor of the kingdom of Tabor pricks her finger on one of its thorns. Drops of blood fall onto the snow, and she wishes for a daughter as white as the snow, with lips as red as the blood, hair as black as a raven's wings and heart as strong as the rose. Note: One of the good things about this film is the cinematography. There are great scenes, including this one, of black trees, grey skies, white snow and blood or scarlet banners in a visual contrast. I liked how the blood active “plipped” and splashed onto the snow.

She gives birth to a daughter, Snow White, but falls ill and dies several years later. After her death, Snow White's father, King Magnus, and his army battle an invading dark army of demonic glass soldiers. Upon rescuing their prisoner Ravenna, the King becomes enchanted with her beauty and marries her. Note: The glass soldiers who shatter into shards of jet quartz are a decent CGI effect, but were a predicter of how many other noisy battles I would have to sit through. The King sees a shack where he finds Ravenna all shackled up and helpless with her size 9.5 feet. He is enchanted by her beauty but also he probably liked the feeling of being a rescuer/protector of women because they are the weaker sex.

Ravenna is in fact a powerful sorceress and the Dark Army's master. On their wedding night, Ravenna confesses there was a king much like Magnus that hurt her. She declares she cannot be a weak queen and kills Magnus before taking over the kingdom. Snow White's childhood friend William and his father, Duke Hammond, escape the castle but are unable to rescue her, and she is captured and locked away in a tower for many years. Note: Before Ravenna took over, we saw several childhood scenes between William and young Snow. They were best friends, playmates and probably promised in marriage to each other to seal a future alliance. There is a scene of them climbing an apple tree and him teasing her with an apple before biting it himself which is undoubtedly foreshadowing.

Watch the wedding night stabbing here: 

Tabor is ruined under Queen Ravenna's rule. She periodically drains the youth from the kingdom's young women in order to maintain a spell cast over her as a child by her mother, which allows her to keep her youthful beauty. Note: I was a little confused by this flashback scene—it may have been because I was worn out from all her evil voice shouting, but as best as I can understand, raiders were coming to their village to take pretty girls away (it was hard to tell as there was a long scene of banging/clanging sword fighting going on while they were talking) and her mother gifts her the gift of eternal youth so that she can somehow grow up and use that as a strength to defeat men. Who knows. But there was a nice echo in the magic potion of dropping three drops of blood into a milky cup which resembled the opening scene with the Queen pricking her finger.  

When her stepdaughter Snow White comes of age, she learns from her Magic Mirror that Snow White is destined to destroy her unless she consumes the girl's heart, which will make her immortal. Ravenna orders her brother Finn (Note: who has the worst bowl cut ever) to bring her Snow White's heart, but Snow White escapes into the Dark Forest, where Ravenna has no power. Note: The dark forest is like being on LSD. You hallucinate all sorts of scary stuff like tree branches turning into black snakes or birds trying to peck out your eyes after breathing some sort of swamp gas.

Watch the magic mirror scene here: 

Watch the dark forest drug trip here:

 Ravenna makes a bargain with Eric the Huntsman, a widower and drunkard, to capture Snow White, promising to bring his wife back to life in exchange. The Huntsman tracks down Snow White, but when Finn reveals that Ravenna does not actually have the power to revive the dead, the Huntsman helps Snow White escape. Finn gathers a band of men to find her, and the Duke and William learn that she is alive. William leaves the castle to find her, joining Finn's band as a bowman. Note: Despite being a drunkard who is dirty and dishevelled, Chris Hemsworth managed to look sexy in a rugged way with matching perfect teeth to Snow White. I guess only dwarves don’t have a dental plan.  

The Huntsman and Snow White leave the Dark Forest, where she saves his life by charming a huge troll that attacks them. They make their way to a fishing village populated by women who have disfigured themselves to make themselves useless to the Queen. Note: This bit was an interesting feminist concept to be judged by your character instead of appearance but would have liked to have seen it given more depth. Also, it stars Rachael Stirling (daughter of Diana Rigg) as the lead disfigured woman with some scars on her face but not really enough to make her that hideous.

 The Huntsman learns Snow White's true identity, and leaves her in the care of the women. He returns when he sees the village being burned down by Finn's men. Snow White and the Huntsman evade them and meet a band of eight dwarves. The blind dwarf Muir perceives that Snow White is the only person who can defeat Ravenna and end her reign.

As they travel through a fairy sanctuary, they are attacked by Finn and his men. Note: The fairy sanctuary is every bit as twee as you would expect—colourful creatures, hazy lighting, moss growing everywhere, twinkly fairy lights and a pure white stag with antlers so big he would never get in your front door if he came to visit in place of the more obvious white unicorn that is tamed by the pure female heroine.

Watch the white stage scene here: 

A battle ensues during which Finn, his men, and one of the dwarfs are killed, while William reveals himself and joins the group on their journey to Hammond's castle. Halfway there, Ravenna disguises herself as William and tempts Snow White into eating a poisoned apple. She flees when the Huntsman and William discover her. Note: This scene was great. I loved that it was the Queen disguised as William not an old crone that gave her the apple. She takes it from him as it harks back to a flirtation that had when she was a tomboy up a tree with him as children and it is truly a surprise when it turns out to be the witch.

Watch the poison apple scene here:

William kisses Snow White but she does not wake up (though no one notices the tear that comes from one of her eyes). Her body is taken to Hammond's castle. The Huntsman professes his regret for not being there to save her, as her heart and strength remind him of his late wife, Sara. He kisses her and does not notice a second tear fall from one of her eyes, as his kiss was second of true love needed. Snow White awakens and rallies the Duke's army to mount a siege against Ravenna.

The dwarves infiltrate the castle through the sewers and open the gates, allowing the Duke's army inside. Snow White confronts Ravenna, but is overpowered. Ravenna is about to kill her when Snow White uses a move the Huntsman taught her and mortally wounds Ravenna, defeating her for good. The kingdom once again enjoys peace and harmony as Snow White is crowned queen. Note: I was disappointed that she didn’t end up marrying the Huntsman as I was hoping this was a tale of bridging the class divide. But we know from the sequel (which bears quite a resemblance to Frozen) that she marries William.

For a laugh, watch an Honest Trailer here for the film and the sequel:

 

 

That’s all for this week. Stay tuned next week for our penultimate blog about Snow White where we look at the Disney film.

 

Fairy Tale Friday--Grimm's Snow White (The Asylum, 2012)

Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

This week we look at a tale of Snow White that is part fairy tale, part Lord of the Rings. It is brought to us by The Asylum whom I have never heard of but a little research showed me they are the ones responsible for the Sharknado series. They are also primarily know for what is referred to in the industry as a “mockbuster.” They look at what big name Hollywood film is coming out and quickly churn out a lower budget similar title such as Transmorphers (Transformers), The Terminators (The Terminator), Snakes on a Train (Snakes on a Plane), Triassic World (Jurassic World)  etc. You get the idea. They also have a lots of films involving bad CGI sharks beyond the Sharknado ones such as Mega Shark vs. Crocosaurus and 3 Headed Shark Attack, so I was thinking this was going to be rubbish, but I was pleasantly surprised.

The first startling thing is that our Snow White is blond. Although the cover of the DVD we bought the photo darkens her hair. I could not find a copy of that cover online, so you will have to settle for the blond version. Her stepmother is the one who has the raven hair. There are decent effects—the magic mirror flows like green water and and the face that speaks to the Queen looks like it is speaking through a waterfall. There are CGI effects that look as though they have stepped out of a video game—vicious dogs with giant heads and several CGI giant lizard-like creatures. They aren’t bad, but they aren’t good either. The costumes have the generic a-sort-of-ye-olde-times vibe. It looks as though they spent all the budget for the top of the costumes as many of the men have a brocade jacket and ruffle-y shirt up top and regular trousers below. Knee high boots were only worn by the main characters so the Prince looks more authentic than his (un) trustworthy assistant. But they get around this by mostly shooting from the thighs up in close up so it it is only noticeable in long shots. Also our blond Snow White wears a pale blue dress that bears an uncanny resemblance to Alice in Wonderland.

Snow White has been sent away to a convent school for many years by her stepmother and returns for her father’s funeral. We see the evil Queen planning to marry a nearby Prince because his land contains the crash site for a meteor which emits a green glow and gives the elves their power—and if she has the power, she will rule the world. Of course he falls in love with Snow White instead of her stepmother, which causes the events you would expect in a Snow White tale to happen: her stepmother sends her out into to the woods to be killed, her heart is to be brought back, Snow White escapes and is rescued by seven (or thereabouts) elves who nurse her back to health, her stepmother disguises herself as an old crone and tries to kill her, she is revived by the Prince and the Queen is destroyed and they live happily ever after. But it all happens in a very Tolkienesque way.

I wasn’t able to find a cohesive summary of this film so have combined the summary from several sources (MOVIE MAVERICKS and HORROR NEWS ) and will add comments in between. 

Grimm’s Snow White is a loose adaptation of the folklore collected by the Brothers Grimm. We begin with a mystical world where a star once fell from the sky and landed with a mighty green and flamey thud on a cliff top.  Soon magical elves and giant lizard-like dragons are fighting over territory and flamey magic. There is some kind of balance though, until the humans come along and mess that all up. Soon they are building kingdoms and getting eaten by the reptiles and treating the elves poorly. The Asylum’s version of the story finds Snow White summoned to the castle by her stepmother Queen Gwendolyn after her father was killed by a giant lizard. Note: We see the mystical green flame on the clifftop and the green crystal amulets that the elves all wear around their necks. They derive their power from the green flame and can do various bits of magic like causing earthquakes, transformation and healing the dying . We see the Queen crying and talking about her grief, but then we see that she is actually rehearsing these lines and practicing her crocodile tears. She touches several of the magic crystal amulets that she has stolen from elves and laid in a bowl on her dressing table. Using their magic she calls upon her magic mirror which also glows with a liquidy green flame.

After doing away with the King, the evil Queen now wants to get rid of Snow, and become the fairest of them all. She orders her to be killed, but Snow escapes into the enchanted forest with the aid of some elves (yes, not dwarfs). Note: These are very Tolkien elves---they all look remarkably like Legolas but with regular short hair as the budget doesn’t stretch to wigs. It does stretch to pointy ears, though. As you would expect, some of the elves are bitter from the way that humans mistreat them, but eventually come around. We have the wise woman elf who will heal Snow White with some herbal potion, and the elf called Runt who everyone thinks is useless but will save the day in the end.

 In a real estate scheme the Queen plans to marry Prince Alexander and take over his part of the enchanted forest (there’s a magic green fire that burns there that she’s after), but the Prince has already fallen for Snow White. The Queen claims Snow is dead, but the Prince doesn’t give up hope in finding her. Unfortunately the Queen is hellbent on getting that prime enchanted forest property (gotta have her green fire), and tries to force the Prince into marriage. Note: We see the Queen forcing her enslaved elf to do her bidding  by transforming her into an old crone who just really looks like she is wearing poorly applied Halloween makeup. She also transforms an ordinary ring into one that looks just like the one the Prince gave to Snow White as a token of his affection and then poisons it. The poison ring idea featured in several of the literary versions of this tale such as Nourie Hadig. We see Snow White trying to contact the elf that works for the Queen that the other elves consider a traitor and she is approached in the market by an old crone who convinces her to take the ring. She puts it on and falls down dead. The elves carry her body and lay it under a low hanging willow tree where they wave a torch around as if they are going to burn her on a funeral pyre. Surely this act of pyromania would best be performed on an open plain rather than beneath a flammable tree? The Prince arrives in the nick of time to save her being burnt alive and takes the ring off her finger (which has now reverted back to its original form) and she miraculously wakes up.

 Now Snow must rally her elven friends to join her battle against the evil Queen, take back her love and generally save the day.  Snow White and the Prince stage some kind of rebellion against the Queen, the elves go to war to carrying mostly bows and arrows and what appears to be sticks and twine. When they finally decide to go to war against the Evil Queen, we are treated to the least impressive motivational speech ever by the surliest of the dwarves … I mean ELVES, sorry … followed by all six of them (no extras must have been hanging out looking for work that day) marching across a field to what I could almost swear is the same music from Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. It was an incredibly underwhelming scene. The elves don’t manage to hold their own very well once the fighting begins (obviously) until, miracle of miracles, they are rescued by … dark elf ninjas. I am not making this up. The dark elves swing into the area on vines (a la Tarzan) in funky black pyjamas and start whacking people with swords. Note: These dark ninja elves are the keepers of the sacred green flame. It looks like all is lost—the Prince is mortally wounded and all the elves and Snow White are captured (being held in not very convincingly tight chokeholds). The Queen gets a priest to come out the forest and perform the wedding RIGHT THERE while the Prince gasps for air. Because if their marriage is until “death do us part” when he dies in a few minutes she will inherit the land with the sacred green flame, defeat the ninja elves and have all the power. Suddenly, Runt the elf that no one thought was useful escapes, rather too easily kills the guard holding Snow White and she takes his sword and kills the Queen. There was some shouting at the telly at this point—me screaming “Do it! Slice off her head! Ooooh! She actually did it!” as the slow motion footage shows Snow White slicing off the Queen’s head in one dramatic blow. Then the green flame is safe, and all the creatures both human and elf can live in harmony with the giant lizards with the Prince and Snow White ruling over them all.

 You can watch the film here:

 That’s all for this week. Stay tuned next week for a tale with another spunky fighting Snow White.

 

Fairy Tale Friday -Snow White: A Deadly Summer (Maureen McCormick, 2012)

Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

This week because Halloween was Saturday, we decided to watch a horror film version of our classic fairy tale entitled Snow White: A Deadly Summer. I will be honest, this should really be titled Snow White: A Deadly Dullness, but we got a few (unintentional) laughs out of it.

It does bear some resemblance to our fairy tale. There is a young girl named Snow (a nickname she acquired because of a snowflake blankie she had as a baby), a clueless father, a stepmother who wants the father all to herself who talks to both her bathroom mirror and a small compact mirror so she can be evil away from home, seven “friends” and some woods.

Basically the plot is this: Teenage Snow (played by Shanley Caswell) is an unconvincing tearaway whose is doted on by her father Eric Roberts who you might remember as the Master in the Paul McGann’s eighth incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who. Perhaps he regrets overacting in that and has decided to underact here to make up for that performance. Here, he appears to be played by a sleeping plank of wood phoning in his performance from a payphone from the 1980s. The stepmother Eve (geddit…like Eve with the apple)  is played by none other than Marcia Brady herself Maureen McCormick. She convinces her husband to send Snow away to a boot camp for delinquent kids that she seems to suspiciously know way too much about. Snow and the seven other campers are picked off one by one by a stranger (or is it??) in a hoodie in the woods and then ends with the most unbelievably trite “I cannot believe they went there” ending.

It is meant to be a horror film, but it is remarkably bloodless. It is full of continuity errors as well as cheap effects and costumes.  Supposedly it had a $1,000,000 budget which makes me wonder what they heck they spent the money on. All of the night scenes that happen in the woods for several days in a row show the same shot of a full moon partially covered by a rabbit shaped cloud and then all the all the actual night scenes with dialogue were filmed in the daytime with an unconvincing blue filter. If I were not teetotal, seeing that same full moon for several nights on the trot would have made an excellent drinking game.

It is a modern story, so no need for period costumes. No need for any costumes really. All the delinquent kids look like they were told “wear some jeans and a black t-shirt” because everyone looks like they dressed themselves. For the killer, just put on a hoodie.

It was directed by David DeCoteau who directed such classics as Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama and my personal favourite 90210 Shark. Need I say more?

There wasn’t a cohesive summary so I have combined details from 2 reviews (COMINGSOON.NET and TAILSLATE.NET) which I will insert comments into. 

This Snow White is a rich girl named Snow Hoffman who is acting out because she doesn’t like her father’s  new wife, Eve. Apparently, she is a delinquent who is out of control. The audience only sees her as an unknowing accomplice to a stolen joyride with her boyfriend where she shouts “Woooo!” a lot. Eve wants Snow out of the picture, so after the troubled teen is party to grand theft auto, Snow’s father agrees with Eve’s suggestion of a 4-week discipline camp. She suggests this not because she cares anything for the girl’s well-being, but because her paranoia – represented, how else, by talking to herself in the mirror – has taken control and she needs to eliminate the threat. Note: I’m assuming Hoffman is her surname, since a sign reading it hangs up in her home—but Hoffman was also the surname used in the Sigourney Weaver version. Also, their house is just that sort of “we have so much money we have lots of white furniture we don’t clean, we just replace when it gets dirty” sort of look about it, including the most bizarre sculpture of a piece of driftwood wearing red high-heeled shoes. We see Eve giving herself a pep talk in the bathroom mirror (I mean we’ve all done that, right?) but her reflection talks back and tells her that she will never be truly loved unless Snow is out of the way. Every time she talked to herself we shouted “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!” which also would have made an excellent drinking game. Maureen McCormick tries here—she does have a go at doing “crazy eyes” but I really miss the confidence and spunk she had as Marcia Brady.

Dragged off in the middle of the night, Snow then finds herself at Camp Allegiance along with seven other campers (Snow White and the Seven Delinquents). In charge is ex-Navy SEAL Colonel Hunter who takes great pleasure in whipping spoiled, selfish teens into shape to turn them into well-behaved and productive members of society. His plan for this is by having them do tons of push-ups and jumping jacks and some light manual labour. Unfortunately they will also be killed one-by-one. Note: Yes, this boot camp sends thugs to drag your wayward child away in the night while you sit on the white sofa and drink chardonnay and try to look like you are vaguely upset that your only daughter is being roughly manhandled, but instead look like you were thinking about what might be on television tonight. These are also the least impressive group of bad kids I have ever seen. They remind me of those Trixie Belden girl detective books where Trixie puts on mascara and eyebrow pencil as a disguise and no one recognises her because she looks like a “bad girl.” It is like what Jack Webb from Dragnet thought hippies were like. They are the least convincing, most bland white-bread “have you ever even MET a teenager???” group of kids I have ever seen.  They all are supposed to be bad-ass with excessive drinking and drug taking and car jacking and thieving, but they all look like they’d be too afraid to do any of those things. It reminds of this boy I knew at summer camp who, in an effort to try to be cool, endlessly whittered on about “having  a nic fit” (as if he were suffering from withdrawals from nicotine) which was just sad and laughable. There is one girl in the film who has a flask of brandy she stole from her mother to show she is heavy drinker from which she occasionally takes a tiny swig. She has some sort of twitchy heroin withdrawal for half a minute as well. We have been watching episodes of Law and Order from the mid  90s on DVD and let me tell ya—those kids know how to look tough and street smart. That TV show puts this film to shame.

But someone else is cutting in, killing the campers one by one (or two at a time when the chance presents itself). For some reason, Snow has dreams that predict these deaths. Not that this extraneous ability helps anyone all that much, other than providing a convenient excuse for badly shot murder scenes. The kills are just as poorly handled. They all happen in broad daylight. They’re all bloodless. The staging suggests a director who has never been behind a camera before. Note: This director has been behind a camera before but judging by the type of film he normally makes (soft porn to cheap schlock horror) staging doesn’t seem to matter. The slutty girl (There always is one. Here she looks like a bargain version of Mean Girl Regina George) gets strangled by her own gold chain, but the body has no markings or bruising on the neck. The smart one who is only pretending to be a wayward teen and is secretly an undercover reporter gets it in the shower and then appears as if someone wiped a french fry with ketchup on her face. On and on it goes. The schoolgirl detective one tells us that at this very same camp 30 years ago in 1987 a terrible murder happened, and the murderer escaped and was never seen again. Cue ominous music. There is also a scene where our protagonist is rescued by a wild woman with snaggly teeth who has been living in the woods in a little hut in easy walking distance from the main camp that the police have failed to notice for the last 30 years. She was there at the camp and a mean girl named Eve (Shock! Horror! The same as her stepmother!) murdered her boyfriend because he looked at another girl and then blamed her, so she ran off to live reasonably nearby as a wild woman. So now we know that the Hoodie Murderer is her STEPMOTHER! Gasp!!! We have the only scene actually shot at night where the stepmother gets a pep talk from her compact mirror and then lowers her hood and tries to kill Snow while her new delinquent boyfriend and the wild woman (who now has perfect teeth) fight her off and throw her over a cliff.

And then we have the ending. The terrible ending. The terrible-horrible-no-good-very bad ending. The ending that must be the first thing you are taught at film school not to use—it was all a dream. Because it turns out that  everything Snow had experienced had been a nightmare caused by a drug overdose. Regarding Eve, her father reveals to Snow that Eve committed suicide after being told that he wouldn't abandon Snow for her. Just like at the end of the film (not the book!) of the Wizard of Oz where they gaslight Dorothy into believing it was all a dream, she sees all the other “delinquent” kids, who were actually just kids in a psychiatric hospital and recognises them from her dream. Now they are all wearing jeans and white t-shirts to prove they are in a different setting than black t-shirt survival camp. Then the nurse comes in and SHOCK! HORROR! She looks just like her stepmother. She also has a hugh-jass needle because needles are scary, kids!

Comingsoon.net says And whoever said this movie is like “Children of the Corn Meets A Nightmare on Elm Street” needs their head examined and I would agree. Also the cover art features Snow in a sexy white dress covered in blood, red stilettos which would be impossible to wear in the woods and an axe which never features in the film.

Overall, this was terrible. But it did give us a few unintentional laughs.

That’s all for this week. Stay tuned next week for a more conventional film starring Julia Roberts as the stepmother.

Fairy Tale Friday--Blancanieves (Maribel Verdú, 2012)

Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

This week we look at a cracking Spanish version made in 2012 that is the most original take on Snow White I have ever seen. It is set in 1920s Seville and centred on a female bullfighter. Did I also mention it is a silent black and white film? As a vegan, I was a bit worried about the bullfighting bit. I will admit, the film made it look more noble than it really is, but some of that is the time this was set in. It is a period piece after all. But it is clear from the filming and confirmed by the helpful “Making Of” extra that many of the scenes of bullfighting were filmed with Blancanieves and the bull acting separately and then the footage of the bull was overlaid on her as we view close ups of her face and the spiders on her eyes I mean long eyelashes and her swishy cape.

 The film was written and directed by Pablo Berger and was truly mesmerising to watch. According to trivia on IMDB, it was shot on colour film stock and desaturated to black & white in post-production.

The acting is superb. Both young Snow White and older Snow White are very good. Especially the younger version played by Sofía Oria. This was her first acting role and she had no prior experience. Her acting is natural and spontaneous. The older version played by Macarena García mostly just had to look wide-eyed/doe-eyed with moist slightly tearful eyes. The star of the film however is the great Maribel Verdú (you may recall her spectacular turn in Pan’s Labyrinth). Her face is so mean and her acting so good at conveying villainous feelings through the medium of silent film as she glares smoulderingly from beneath a black lace veil. The other star of the show is Gallo Pepe the rooster who wears a jaunty little spotted neckerchief and is young Carmencita’s only childhood friend and meets a sticky end from her evil stepmother Encarna. Which is a great name as it includes the word carna which refers to meat.

I could not find a cohesive summary and so I have combined two different summaries which I will insert comments into. The first is a review by ROGER EBERT  and the second is a blog by SPANISH CINEPHILIA    .

The story opens with a famous matador, Antonio Villalta, who is filled with swaggering ego. All goes wrong for him. He is paralyzed in the ring, and his beloved wife dies in childbirth. Their daughter, Carmen, is raised by her grandmother until her death. Antonio unwisely marries the heartless Encarna, his former nurse, who wants only his money and ignores him as he sits in a wheelchair in his room. Note: There is so much to unpack here. Antonio is very pious. He spends ages praying at the feet of a statue of the Virgin Mary before he goes out to kill a bull. We see his manager/friend roll his eyes at the amount of time he takes to pray. A local paparazzi with his enormous camera with a magnesium flash like the one below tries to get a photo but is rebuffed.

Antonio waves to his very pregnant wife in the crowd and shouts, “This one is for you and our unborn child!” Later, at the end of all the cape swishing when it is time for the bull to die, the relentless paparazzi sneaks over and manages to get a photo just as the bull is about to be slaughtered, but being a magnesium flash it goes BANG which distracts the matador long enough for the bull to gore him and him make him a paraplegic. Then his wife goes into early labour and after a very bloody birth (thankfully…I can’t abide scenes of birth where there is no blood) she dies and he cannot bear to look upon his daughter who is named Carmencita after her mother Carmen who had been a very dramatic flamenco dancer before her untimely demise. You meet Encarna here who is his nurse, and you can see the greed and long range planning on her face as she sees him paralysed and hears that his wife has just died. You see her making up her mind and then butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth as she nurses him back to health. We see her feeding him like a baby bird and him becoming more and more dependant on her. We also meet Carmencita (little Carmen) with her grandmother and her best friend Gallo Pepe the rooster. There is a scene of her being fitted for a communion dress and her effervescence shines through as she cannot help but dance around with joy. All she wants is her absent father to come to her big day at church, but he does not come. She feels unloved, but she does not know he is sat alone in his wheelchair completely neglected.

Her maternal grandmother teaches her to dance flamenco.  When her grandmother passes away, Carmen is sent to live with Encarna. Note: At the party after her first communion, when the child is hiding under a table because she is so sad that her father did not come to her big day, her grandmother entices her out and they do a raucous flamenco dance with lots of hand clapping and then suddenly the grandmother falls dead of a heart attack which is a terrible thing to happen, but especially on the day of your first communion. There follows a great scene where Carmencita’s white communion dress is slowly lowered into a tin washtub and when removed is dyed black for mourning clothes.

  Encarna forbids the child from ascending the stairs to the first floor – where her wheelchair-bound father lives.  Carmen is forced to sleep in a squalid outbuilding, and to work relentlessly on the estate. Note:  We see Encarna cut off Carmen’s black curls giving her a haircut like a boy to try to humiliate the girl. There is a really good montage of her working and you see the struggles of a real life nine year old as she attempts to do the tasks.

 One day, she decides to defy her stepmother and venture upstairs because Gallo Pepe has escaped. The child observes Encarna dominating the household's chauffeur in classic boot-and-whip style.  Note: Yes, we see the fabulous Maribel Verdú doing quite a bit of dominatrix stuff. There is a later scene where she is being painting in her hunting clothes with her dog and she insists that the chauffeur strip down to his underwear and wear the collar and lead of the dog as the painter shrugs his shoulders as if to say, “Rich people. What are they like?” While searching for Gallo Pepe, Carmen finds her father stuck in his wheelchair.

 Carmen and her father develop a close bond: he teaches her the art of bullfighting; and she dances flamenco for him.  Encarna discovers this betrayal and slays Carmen’s pet chicken Pepe. Note: This is a horrific scene where Encarna invites Carmen to dine with her for the first time and says “Would you like some PEPEry chicken?” and then plays it off like she meant the spice not the bird, but then she lifts the domed lid off the platter and you see poor dead Gallo Pepe complete with his neckerchief. This puts little Carmen off chicken for life. We then have a transition which is beautifully filmed where young Carmen is pegging out the wash and pretending the laundry is a  swishy cape and then she becomes older Carmen who looks remarkably like Marcella Detroit from the band Shakespears Sister.

 Fed up with caring for her invalid husband, Encarna hastens his demise by pushing his wheelchair down the stairs. Note: There is a scene after his death where they dress his dead body up in his bullfighting costume and they take comedy photos with his dead body.  She then arranges for her lover the chauffeur to attack the now teenage Carmen in the woods. In a brutal attack he strangles her, tries to rape her then drowns her. Left for dead in a nearby river, Carmen is discovered by a troupe of dwarves, Los Enanitos Toreros. They are bullfighters who travel between cities and look like characters out of a Tod Browning film. As she has no memory of who she is they name her Blancanieves, como la del cuento’ (‘Snow White, like her from the fairy tale’). Note: Here the dwarves are more like rodeo clowns. They have a comedy act where they bullfight a calf. They also have some distinct characteristics—there is the cross dressing one, the eye patch one, the kind handsome one (who becomes a sort of sweetheart to her) and the angry, sullen one with the pencil moustache who resents her plus two more who didn’t seem to have a distinguishing characteristic. They take her on the circuit with them.

When Pencil Moustache dwarf  is wounded, she leaps into the ring and distracts the bull, using the matador skills she learned from her father which makes him resent her even more. Eventually she, too, becomes a famed matador. An unscrupulous agent named Don Carlos gets her to sign a contract that says: "Blancanieves gives exclusive lifetime rights to Don Carlos for all properties, present and future." This will be her undoing. Through them, she rediscovers her knowledge of bullfighting.  She begins performing with them, becoming famous in the process. But she still doesn’t know who she is. As the story unfolds, Encarna becomes aware of the true identity of ‘Blancanieves’, and attempts to poison her with an apple following a victorious performance in the Plaza de Toros in Seville Note: There is a terrific montage of Encarna posing for the 1920’s Spanish equivalent of Hello! Magazine where they take pictures of her in her show-home in a variety of extravagant costumes with outrageous hats. She is told that she will be the cover article with her fancy clothes in her fancy house, but instead Blancanieves makes the cover and is their headlining feature while Encarna and her house are relegated to the back pages and the photo they chose doesn’t even feature her face. In her rage, she clouts her lover over the head with a statuette and then pushes his body in the pool. It is here she vows to kill Carmen at the arena in Seville where she receives top billing. At the arena an old friend of her father speaks to Carmen and says how proud her father would be and as she is on her way out to fight the bull, her memory comes flooding back and she knows who she is. Her stepmother is in the audience and watches her beneath a black lace veil. Pencil Moustache dwarf, who is still mistrustful of her, in a fit of anger switches the signs for the bulls so instead of a calf, the meanest bull is sent out to meet her. With the memory of who she is and her heritage now restored, Carmen swishes her cape and fights the bull and then at the end the audience waves their white hankies—the sign that the bull should be spared, so no blood will be shed that day. The audience are throwing coins and flowers and hats into the arena. Like a snake, Encarna slithers down with the apple and bumps into Pencil Moustache dwarf. She haughtily dismisses him calling him Tom Thumb as she picks up the apple she dropped. She offers up the apple to her stepdaughter, hiding her face behind the veil. We see Carmen take it—there are heart stopping moments where she puts it to her mouth, but then stops to wave to the cheering crowd. Then she bites and falls down dead. Suddenly Pencil Moustache dwarf knows exactly who did this shouts the Spanish version of “J’accuse!!” and they are after her. They chase Encarna into the shed with the meanest bull who gores her to death. Here is where you want a happy ending—the stepmother is dead, surely Carmen will wake up and marry Kind Handsome dwarf? But alas, not so. The unscrupulous Don Carlo owns her body due to the contract she signed, even in sleeping death. Here she becomes like Sleeping Beauty. A side show freak, lovingly tended by Kind Handsome dwarf.

 Slipping into a coma, the girl continues to function as a spectacle.  Patrons pay a small fee to be able to kiss her on the lips, in the hope that she will awake.  The film ends with Kind Handsome dwarf kissing Carmen on the lips: the camera closes in on the corner of her eye, detailing a tear brimming at its edge. Note:  This ending had me in floods. As you see the dwarf who truly loves her have to watch her violated over and over for the price of a coin it breaks your heart. Her hair has grown out quite long to show the passage of time. He is still devoted to her, but how his heart must ache. At the end when the tear comes out—is this an autonomic response or is she aware of everything that happens and cannot move to do anything about it?

This film affected me greatly. The style and cinematography was brilliant and the story fresh and original. You can watch the whole film below, but the title cards will be in Spanish (though you can follow it well enough without them.) But if you don’t have time or the inclination to watch a full length silent film just watch the ending which you can see here:  

The ending. *SOB*

 

The whole film:

That’s all for this week. Stay tuned next week for a horror film version starring Marcia Brady.

 

 

Fairy Tale Friday--Snow White The Fairest of Them All (Miranda Richardson, 2001)

Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

Last week we looked at a spectacular period piece starring Sigourney Weaver that showed deep emotions and a true look at what grief does to you. I had really high hopes for this one as it stars Miranda Richardson as the stepmother, but I was ultimately disappointed.

Snow White: The Fairest of Them All is a 2001 fantasy adventure film that was produced by Hallmark Entertainment and it shows. The film had a theatrical release in Europe but the following year it aired in the United States on ABC as part of their series on The Wonderful World of Disney which also is not surprising.

What is surprising is that it was co-written and directed by Caroline Thompson who wrote the screenplays for three of my favourite films—Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas and the Corpse Bride. What happened here, I know not but the dialogue is flatter than a pancake that has been run over by a lorry and the costumes are that generic “ye olde tymes” period of vague clothes that are just suggestive of some general unspecific past.

As I said Miranda Richardson plays the stepmother and a few times you can hear a bit of Queenie from Blackadder slip into her inflection. Snow White herself is Kristin Kreuk whom you might remember from Smallville and her father is played by Tom Irwin who was the dad in My So-Called Life! Three of the seven dwarves are well known actors—Warwick Davies (Willow among other things), Vincent Schiavelli as the not so dwarfish one and Michael J Anderson whom you probably know as the dwarf who spoke backwards in Twin Peaks but whom I think of as staring in Julie Taymor’s stunning reimagining of Edgar Allan Poe’s Hop Frog entitled Fools Fire. The actors do their best, bless ‘em, but the dialogue is rather clunky.

But it is not all bad news. There are some interesting effects. The magic mirror is  a small piece of broken mirror set in a spiderweb shaped wooden frame which acts as a mirror, a flying weapon and a magic wand. There are a series of wall mirrors that reflect like a fun house of images that can either enforce your narcissism or taunt you into insanity.

The special effects are a mixed bag. There is some great prosthetic makeup, but it is like they ran out of spirit gum as all the prosthetics seem to gape away from the actor’s face as they speak.

Reviews were mixed which was no surprise. Here is a summary courtesy of Wikipedia that I will inert comments into.

John and Josephine deeply wish to have a child and when she is born with skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood and hair as black as ebony, they name her Snow White. However, Josephine dies in childbirth, leaving John alone with their child. Note: I loved the opening as it was on a bed of white apple blossoms that had fallen off a nearby tree like snow instead of actual snow that the mother bleeds on to make her wish, but that is all the blood we see as she gives birth in a spotless bed and then dies without bleeding out after having a traumatic birth so we were back to the unreality of white sheets and no placenta that so many of these tales seem to have.

 In the winter, John struggles to find food for his daughter, eventually collapsing and shedding a tear over a frozen lake, which frees a creature known as the Green-Eyed One. Note: The guy who plays the Green-Eyed one is the voice of Mr Krabs on SpongeBob SquarePants. His prosthetics are quite good but they have a tendency to gap.

 As thanks for freeing him, the Green-Eyed One asks John what he needs. John requests milk for his daughter, and the Green-Eyed One grants his wish. John then asks to have his wife back, calling Josephine his Queen, but the Green-Eyed One cannot resurrect the dead. However, he says he can give John a Queen, and John suddenly finds himself a king with his own kingdom. Note: In a sort of “this is not my beautiful kingdom” take on the Talking Heads, ministers suggest perhaps he just had a bump on the head and forgot he was king of this little country. So did the Green-Eyed One conjure up a country out of thin air and then enchant all the ministers to gaslight the new king until he believes it or did he bump off a ruler of an existing kingdom and threaten the ministers if they ever revealed to the new king that he didn’t use to be the king?

Since the Green-Eyed One is obligated to fulfil John's wishes, he pays a visit to Elspeth, his hideous spellcasting sister. He transforms her into a beautiful young woman who can now marry John and become his queen and Snow White's stepmother. The creature also provides Elspeth with a magical mirror that allows her to see others unseen and to deceive John. Note: she is truly ugly with large warty lesions all over her face and she hates looking in the mirror and feels like the Green-Eyed one is taunting her when he tries to make her look at herself. So her vanity issues are less about aging and being the fairest in the land and more to do with she is so excited to finally not be hideous that she gets obsessed with her looks. He forces her to shatter the mirror that showed her reflection as beautiful and glass rains down from the sky and a piece of the mirror falls in Snow White’s father’s eye which makes him see her as beautiful and overlook her less than appealing personality.  She also has a yard full of garden gnomes which will be important later. Watch that scene here:

 As years pass, Elspeth forms a good relationship with her new husband and stepdaughter, now a beautiful sixteen-year-old princess. However, Elspeth is vain and keeps a room full of magical mirrors which assure her each day that she is the fairest of them all whenever she asks. Note: This was an interesting scene and gave Miranda a bit of range in that she had to say “Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all?” in about a dozen different ways. She also has the small hand-held mirror cum magic wand and killer flying object I mentioned above where only her face comes out of the front of the mirror and the back stays flat and wooden. The wall of mirrors each with her reflection all coming out in 3-D must have blown their special effects budget. There is also a scene where her husband who is perpetually rubbing his eye has the little piece of glass fall out after 16 years of it poking his cornea and begins to see her clearly for the first time and realise how he has neglected his daughter as he only had eyes for his wife. What triggered the glass to fall out is seeing his beautiful wife reflected in all the mirrors gave him a bit of *schwing* in the old codpiece and he tries to initiate sexy times but she is repulsed and shoves him away quite hard and the glass falls out and he sees clearly for the first time in ages. Watch that scene here:

When Prince Alfred arrives in the kingdom and falls in love with Snow White, Elspeth is furious to discover that images of Snow White are appearing in her mirrors, which means that her stepdaughter is the fairest of them all. Note: Snow White has a great speech to Prince Alfred about how she doesn’t want to be loved for just being beautiful—that looks are not as important as being kind. Miranda Richardson SHAMELESSLY flirts with Alfred going as far as saying how much older and more boring her husband is. All the while the husband (now sans mirror in his eye) is giving that “Um…I am right here” sort of look to the camera. She takes the sliver of mirror and tries to spike Prince Alfred’s drink so it could get imbedded in his heart and he would love her not her stepdaughter, but he clumsily drops the cup of punch while rubbernecking to see Snow White. The sliver of glass pops out and lands in the eye of Hector one of the servants. He in turn falls head over heels in love with her and agrees to do whatever she wants in exchange for a snog.

   Driven with jealousy, Elspeth orders a hunter, Hector, to take Snow White into the forest and kill her, and then return with Snow White's heart for her to consume. In the meantime, Elspeth also transforms Alfred into a bear. Note: This is a nice touch as it mimics the fairy tale Snow White and Rose Red about a prince that is enchanted in the form of a bear. We see lots of scenes of a large bear roaming the woods and mournfully calling out trying to say “Hey, wait! It’s me Alfred!” but it just comes out like “Grrrrrr!” Then the stepmother makes him walk through the magic mirror wand and he turns really tiny and she imprisons him in a snow globe which floats down river until a racoon find it and jostles him about.

  Unable to kill Snow White, Hector presents Elspeth with the heart of a wild boar instead. When she learns the truth, Elspeth kills Hector, imprisons John in her mirrors and stifles Snow White with an enchanted ribbon. Note: Instead of being a pedlar peddling her wares and enticing Snow White with a ribbon, she just leaves in lying on a rock in the woods and Snow White thinks “Hey, here’s a lovely lavender ribbon that someone has just conveniently left lying around in this deep dark forest. I know! I will tie it round my waist like a generic costume sash!” Then it squeezes her innards and stops her breathing. Interestingly, she has not met the dwarfs yet. Every other version I know this event happens after she was living with the dwarfs. Watch this scene here:

Snow White is saved by seven dwarfs, each named after the days of the week and possessing the power to transform into a rainbow to move from one place to another (but are only capable if all seven of them are present) as well as control the weather. The eldest is Sunday, who is a victim of one of Elspeth's spells that has left half of him as a garden gnome. Note: Remember those garden gnomes in the stepmother’s garden? They were friends of the dwarfs and Sunday had gone to find out where they had disappeared to. He got caught and was transformed to a stone statue. The evil Queen had brought them with her to her new husband’s palace and Sunday in his garden gnome guise was Snow White’s only friend growing up, so he recognises her and vouches for her to the other dwarfs. When Snow White didn’t die from the strangling ribbon, he became half dwarf again and although the makeup is effective in making half his face look like it is still a statue, it gapes AWFULLY. There were times I thought I could probably fit my finger in the gap as he talked which is not good.

 The dwarfs allow Snow White to care for their home, though the dwarf Wednesday is initially suspicious. When Elspeth learns that Snow White is still alive, she prepares a poisoned apple and transforms into Snow White's deceased mother, Josephine, with the magic mirror the Green-Eyed One gave her. Aided by Monday, who is turned into a garden gnome afterward, Elspeth (disguised as Josephine) finds Snow White and convinces her to eat the enchanted and poisoned apple, which seemingly kills Snow White. Note: There are lots of tales (including this one) where one half of the apple is white and the other red. The transformation scene on the apple was a decent effect, but who in their right mind is going to eat an apple which looks like someone has covered half of it in Tippex? It is also a really good move to have her take the guise of the child’s own mother. Though she can’t recall her mother’s face being like 5 minutes old when she died, there is a *feeling* of warmth and familiarity about the woman who brings her an apple. Watch the apple transformation scene here:

With her task finished, Elspeth tries to use the mirror to become the Queen again but she instead reverts to her true form, even more loathsome than before. The Green-Eyed One appears and reveals that her evil deed has cost Elspeth her beauty. Meanwhile, the dwarfs, unable to revive Snow White, place her in a coffin of ice and leave her near Monday's statue. When she receives a kiss of true love from Prince Alfred (in his bear form) she is revived. Note: Sunday the dwarf also recognises the bear as Alfred and vouches for him too. He breaks the snow globe allowing the bear to take its full-sized form again. Then when the Alfred sees Snow White encased in ice, he painstakingly licks through the ice to give her the big wet sloppy kiss of true love.  

The spells on Alfred, Sunday and Monday are broken and Elspeth's mirrors shatter, freeing John. Elspeth is cornered and killed by the gnomes she had turned to stone, who have been released from their enchantments. Freed from Elspeth, the Green-Eyed One is able to go his way. Snow White and Alfred live happily ever after while the dwarfs decide to move on to find Sleeping Beauty. Watch the Queen’s demise here:

That’s all for this week. I really wanted to like it more than I did. However, if you are interested, you can watch the whole film here:

But stay tuned for a version next week that is a modern black and white silent film from Spain.