Fairy Tales
(1978)
Director: Harry
Tampa
Cast: Don Sparks, Sy Richardson, "Professor" Irwin Corey
When I originally reviewed the soft core movie
Cinderella, I was pretty sure that it was virtually
forgotten today, given the length of time from its initial
release, having being rated X, and that finding a long out of print
videocassette copy of the movie is very hard to do. But since putting
up the review, I've been surprised to receive a significant number of
letters from people searching for a copy of the movie - for the most
part, they are people with fond memories of seeing the movie when they
were kids (make of that what you will.) With the knowledge that this
movie is more known that I originally thought, some cynics may say that
my decision to review the follow-up - Fairy Tales - is
nothing but a ploy to possibly increase the number of visitors to my
site. Poppycock. I think it's an unknown movie. If I later find out it
isn't, I'll admit it, but I'll keep the review up so that all those
fans with fond memories of the movie have at least one official review
on the Internet to read.
You might be expecting that with a title like Fairy Tales,
this follow-up might be a collection of erotic vignettes (kind of how
Once Upon A Girl was
executed.) That's not how it is though; like Cinderella,
it's one long story, though this time around it's not an erotic telling
of any familiar fairy tale, just taking the characters from various
fairy tales and putting them in a new setting. That's not the only
difference this movie has from Cinderella; though Charles Band
returned as producer, few of the other people involved with Cinderella
return here. We have a different director, as well as different writers
and composers, and as for the actors only Sy Richardson and one or two
minor actors return.
Newcomer Don Sparks plays the central character this time around, a
prince
named ...uh... "Prince", the heir to the throne of ...uh... some
country or other. The movie starts with him waking up on his 21st
birthday, where he finds out that now he is of age, he has to create an
heir to the throne (or just to simply have sex with any woman, with no
impregnation necessary - the movie isn't able to make its mind up just
how far he has to go.) The problem is that Prince (the one in the
movie, not the where-is-he-now musician) can't find a woman that stirs
up the royal blood - except for the long-lost Sleeping Beauty, whose
portrait he is attracted to. Learning that he has to have sex and
possibly impregnate some woman within in a few days (for reasons never
explained) or be forced to forfeit the throne, he sets out on a quest
to find and have sex with Sleeping Beauty.
If you're thinking that this premise sounds awfully
thin, you're right. In fact, after this point on, subsequent
scenes either consist of Prince making yet another failed attempt to
get laid, or showing us subplots concerning other characters. Actually,
they can't really be called subplots, since not only do these
characters have no bearing on the Prince or what he is trying to do,
they don't even serve any purpose for themselves, having no kind of
story in them at all. For example, one long sequence has someone being
given a long tour of the various delights to be had for a price in The
Old Lady's shoe (which in this telling is a brothel.) There is also a
lot of time devoted to the character of King Cole (Bob Leslie), such as
one scene where he sits through a long strip number. None of these
sequence have any story to them; they are simply desperate attempts to
force humor and/or eroticism into the movie, but end up slowing the
movie down. Cinderella may have had a number of scenes
that went on too long, but at least most of them did advance the plot
to one degree or another.
Saddled with such a limited script, it's a wonder that some of the
actors even try at all, though even then you get a sense that they
aren't performing with full enthusiasm. Not only have they been saddled
with characters and situations that have little point to them, they
also have lines of dialogue that fall flat for the most part, ranging
from lame one-liners ("No, I have a jester - he does all my fooling
around") to unimaginative exchanges that include the following:
Bo Peep: What's the matter - can't you come?
Prince: Where are you going?
With material like that, you can't really blame the cast for not coming
across well for the most part. All Leslie can do to raise a laugh is
make some amusing facial expressions during the strip number. Sparks
comes across even worse; in fact, even if the script was better, he'd
still be hopelessly miscast. He has no charisma, with his forgettable
performance coming across so unroyal-like, so bland, that it's hard to
even remember what he looks like after the movie is over. Still, there
are two performances worthy of some note. Though Richardson does seem
to be bored at times in his role of Cyrus The Pimp (all he's limited in
doing is giving advice to the Prince), he manages to give his dialogue
some sparkle, even when it's a line like, "Hey you, Prince with the sex
problem!" Another performer who adds some color is Robert Staats as
Tommy Tucker, the doorman for The Old Lady. He's well cast as a
fast-talking salesman-type who entices passing people to come inside.
("Ever hear of Little Red Riding Hood? Tonight you get to ride her!")
Fairy Tales aims to be like
Cinderella in some aspects, not just in attempting to deliver
erotic moments, but also by staging bawdy musical numbers. When I
initially reviewed Cinderella, I didn't find its
eroticism to be that effective overall, and the musical
numbers were extremely mixed. However, I am seriously considering
changing my opinions about the presentation of said material,
since they look absolutely high class compared to how the same things
are presented in Fairy Tales. Starting with the sexier
moments - well, that may be kind of a misnomer. Not only are the
so-called erotic moments in Fairy Tales not that
erotic, believe it or not there are not that many attempts to even try
to do something erotic. The movie seems so busy
bringing in all those redundant characters and situations that I
previously mentioned, it seems it had very little time left over to
thrown in sex and nudity. Most of the sex and nudity is of the
peek-a-boo variety. Even when they bother to show a little more, it
falls flat. There is no fun to these sequences, no sign anyone was
trying to be a little sexy or energetic. Even in the one sequence (an
orgy inside the shoe) when the movie almost crosses into hard-core porn
territory fails to entertain, because the device used to bring it into
the movie comes via a contrived subplot where The Old Lady lets Peeping
Tom look through the keyhole of the orgy room door. The movie
subsequently builds a real sense of desperation when the second half of
the movie constantly cuts back to Peeping Tom and the orgy, as if the
movie is admitting it can only think of this technique to bring in more
sex and nudity.
The musical numbers attempt to duplicate the memorable
and witty songs found in Cinderella, but you won't find
yourself afterwards humming almost all of these songs like you did with
"The Snapper" or "I'm Gonna Grab It". Once again, the songs are staged
in several styles; for example, one number in a S&M dungeon is
performed in the style of The Andrews Sisters (except that T.A.S. kept
their clothes on.) While numbers such as this had the opportunity to do
some amusing juxtaposition, there is no effort in the lyrics to mine
this for wit, simply instead singing to the effect of "I/We/Let's have
sex" - and nothing more. The songs come across worse than they would
have ordinarily, because of the fact that many of the singers simply
can't sing; the Little Bo Peep actress is so awful, I could barely
understand half of what she sung.
Strangely, the one good song in the movie - "You'll
Feel The Magic In Me" - isn't intended to be comic at all. A disco
number, it is surprisingly
catchy, and had it been released on radio during the period it most
likely would have made it into the top 40. Though like the other
musical numbers of the movie, it suffers from being poorly staged. The
choreography and direction of these musical numbers - which wasn't so
hot the first time around - is even more lazy and passionless here. I
found that each musical number was more or less executed in one of two
ways - three or four camera angles that framed only the
actors' head and shoulders in the frame, or else lengthy shots taken
further away, where the actors stand in one spot, occasionally dancing
(more like shuffling) side to side a little. Perhaps the director
didn't want the actors to move around too much and risk breaking
through the obvious cardboard and canvas walls on the tacky sets that
even high school play set dressers would be embarrassed to see. They
don't just look cheap - they are dreary to the eye, and they add
yet another note of that "Who cares?" feeling that constantly
rings out during the entire eighty or so minutes. Even before reaching
the twenty minute mark of that running time, I had finally learned
after all these years just exactly what it was that put Sleeping Beauty
into such a deep coma.
Check
for availability on Amazon (Blu-Ray)
See also: The Apple, Cinderella, Once Upon A
Girl
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