Monday, March 14, 2011

Once upon a film

There's a delightful round-up of fairy tales on film over at Movie Morlocks; it runs the gamut from classic (Cocteau) to obscure (Valerie and her Week of Wonders) to contemporary (Red Riding Hood). Insightful readings add new dimensions to old favorites (Freeway's "subtext is not about sex, but about class and taste, as it reveals the hypocrisy and condescension of the liberal middle class toward the 'unfortunates' of society..." zing!) while her list also adds at least three previously unknown titles to my Netflix queue.
An excellent list that should inspire any fairy-tale fan, or fan of film for that matter. The only thing I might add to it might be Hawks' Ball of Fire, which bears a very loose resemblance to Snow White, as gangster moll Barbara Stanwyck hides out in a houseful of seven* mild-mannered professors who are writing a slang dictionary.

* There are eight, actually, if you count Gary Cooper, but we all know he's the Prince!

1 comment:

Levi Stahl said...

Oh, how I love Ball of Fire! But I'd never thought of it as Snow White--you're right, it's almost perfect. Only the stable of MGM character actors beats Dopey, et al. any day.