Fairy Tales

"My Venus lies five inches below my belly-button. But it's better there than in Uranus." I gave this film a 10 not because it's a great movie (it's not) but because it is so unique and weird that everyone really must watch it before they die to truly experience the world.

My friend Jason and I both watched this when we were twelve and fell in love with its absurdity. Now, thirteen years later Jason found it again on Netflix and we decided to bring back old memories. Oh, and it was as strange as we remembered if not stranger.

The story if of a prince who must have children in order to carry on his kingdom. But he can only be aroused by one woman, a princess he has never met and who may or may not exist. So he goes on a musical quest (yes, this is a musical) through fairy land to find her. Along the way, he encounters Little Bo Peep, Jack and Jill, Tommy Tucker, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and others. And they sing, and they're naked.

The songs are great and the excessive nudity is interesting. What is funny is that the nudity is not erotic and at no point does anything sexual ever happen. Yes, seven clothed midgets do lie on top of a naked Snow White, but no flesh touches flesh.

The only attractive woman in the film (besides maybe Jill) is none other than Linnea Quigley, known for her roles in numerous B-movies and fro ma few Cheech and Chong films. Among horror fans, she's best known as the goth chick from "Return of the Living Dead" (which, incidentally, might be one of the greatest zombie movies ever). While her part is very small, this also happens to be one of her first roles. So if you like a young Linnea, you really need to see this. (Although, as I said in the intro, if you really want to live you have to see this anyway.) Recommended beyond your wildest dreams. Just don't let two twelve year old boys watch it or they'll grow up to become addicted to the absurd... or worse yet, horse porn.

Basically a R-rated spoof of fairy tale characters. Naturally all the woman are young and beautiful and take off there clothes for no real reason; there's no male nudity (unfortunately); the songs are actually funny and well-done (the "Snow White" number broke me up) and there's no real sex or anything. Tons of female nudity but done very innocuously and in a refreshing matter-of-fact manner. It's silly, brezzy and entertaining. The low budget is obvious but it actually doesn't hurt the movie--I mean, who expects high production values from THIS? So very good for an R-rated adult spoof. Not "Citizen Kane" but fun.

This 'erotic fairy tale' film rehashes similar plotlines from earlier films, most notably "Cinderella," with the premise of an impotent prince looking for a woman who can excite him. Since all of the 'good' material had been taken by earlier films, "Fairy Tales" pulls from many sources, from nursery rhymes like 'Little Bo Peep' and 'Jack and Jill,' to tales like "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves" and even a cameo by "Little Red Riding Hood."

By jumping around so much, this film keeps your interest. It's fairly humorous and the T&A is harmless. Tommy Tucker's brothel-barker character is the most successful as he beckons passersby to enter 'the big shoe,' assuring that what they do there is "nobody's business but your own."

Where this film loses steam is in the penultimate song sequence, identical to the one in "Cinderella," in which the cast sings the praises of Sleeping Beauty's virtues. Whereas in "Cinderella" the song refers to Cinderella's particular sexual expertise; here Sleeping Beauty's claim to fame is that she's a virgin. And comatose to boot. The prince, King Cole, and the Frog Prince (for whom i felt most sorry in that his plight could have been halted by a simple kiss from a virgin), despite the endless parade of literary babes, all desire Sleeping Beauty because she's never had sex. This sudden assertion of moral purity seems out of place and sort of disgusting in the light of the supposed sexual freedoms of this fantasy world. It brings a strangely didactic tone to this otherwise if-it-feels-good-do-it spectacle.

I fell in love with this "soft porn" turn at first viewing. It could have been just another slipshod "peepshow" as is the case of most T&A features. Instead, Hurwitz and Perilli decided that anything worth doing is worth doing well. The music is absolutely splendid and memorable and wickedly tongue-in-cheek (I am quite partial to "Beat Him Daddy A to the Bar" and "Little Bo Peep". All of the characters are well realized and fleshed out (so to speak) given the genre. Being an actor myself, I can tell when performers are having fun with their roles...a mainstay of successful comedy. They seem to have been having a blast. Anyone who can get through Tommy Tucker's (Robert Staats)scenes without a hearty belly-laugh (to say the least) is likely dead, humorless, or made of stone. Well done all around. I give it a "10". Highly recommended.

Nudity in a movie can be mere eye candy, no different to looking at the images on one of the magnificent ceilings painted by artists such as Fragonard, or it can be presented with a sexual significance. It can be shown in various ways, as a totally natural incident appropriate to the scene being sceened, as pure fun, as erotic stimulation, as downright dirty comedy, or as explicit sex - although this is generally regarded as making the film pornographic. It can also be presented musically, and with so many possibilities it is hardly surprising that many filmgoers will enjoy some, but not all, of these forms of presentation. All such material will however usually result in the film in question being classified as for adult viewers only. Back in the 1970's three films incorporating such material were released under titles commonly associated with children's literature. These were "Alice in Wonderland" (1976), "Cinderella" (1977) and "Fairy Tales" (1979). It is therefore particularly important that reviews of these films should make their contents quite clear, as there are reported to have been instances of video hire firms who were sued by irate parents inadvertently borrowing these films for their offspring's entertainment.

Both Cinderella and Fairy Story have been released through the same distributors (Astral) and can best be described as musical comedies for adults which makes liberal use of nudity in fun sequences; they do not fall into the dirty comedy category and, since many of the songs are more humorous and less suggestive than those often encountered in music videos, they are not likely to offend many of the viewers who know what to expect. Some of those who have commented on these films in the Imdb data base have expressed a preference for Cinderella, but I personally preferred Fairy Tales. Both these films are very similar in style, and choosing one in preference to the other is essentially a matter of taste. My preference is largely based on the impression that Fairy Story provides more variety, with new characters drawn from classic children's stories appearing at regular intervals throughout the film. By contrast the story of Cinderella is very well known and even when retold in adult form some of the element of surprise, which is important for films of this type, is lost.

The music and songs in both films are excellent and are such fun that it would be hard not to enjoy them, a sequence in Fairy Tales where Snow White is set upon by her seven little dwarfs is particularly enjoyable (probably it could not even be filmed today as the Society of Dwarfs, or some similar body, might protest forcibly about unflattering representation of those handicapped individuals which it represents), and the presentation of the house in a shoe as the local house of ill fame, with Robert Staats as a copybook ponce, is hilarious. Ultimately I usually find that the success of a film of this type is assured whenever it is very clear that all the cast had a whale of a good time whilst creating it. This is certainly the case here, and I have no hesitation in strongly recommending this film to anyone interested in seeing it. For a film of its genre I would rate it at 9 out of 10.