Here's an early sixties movie we haven't done yet, so...
Here we go!! It's all about the fictionalized lives of the Bavarian story tellers, the Grimm Brothers. In the early nineteenth century, Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm are commissioned to write a family history for a local Duke, the reenactments of three of their stories, "The Dancing Princess", "The Cobbler and the Elves" and "The Singing Bone" are showcased.
It's an all-star cast, including Laurence Harvey, Karlheinz Böhm, Claire Bloom, Walter Slezak, Barbara Eden, Oskar Homolka, Arnold Stang, Yvette Mimieux, Russ Tamblyn, Jim Backus, Terry-Thomas, Buddy Hackett, Otto Kruger, Billy Barty, Angelo Rossitto, Gene Roth and many more,
wow!! Directed by Henry Levin and George Pal.
We're introduced to the Grimm Bros and the story starts to unfold. This is a 135 minute Cinerama production with an intermission...
In "The Dancing Princess" the King, Jim Backus, wants a handsome young man to follow his daughter and find out where she goes after she disappears in the middle of the night. Russ Tamblyn plays The Woodsman, who takes on the assignment.
He follows her and discovers she wants to dance with the gypsies, Russ shows off his dancing chops and the two fall in love! He must get back to the castle before the Princess is caught, he has a cloak of invisibility and catches a ride on the Princess's carriage to save time.
In "The Cobbler and the Elves" the cobbler is threatened to get his client's shoes finished in a timely manner for a change!
George Pal directed all the animated scenes in the movie, here, he puts his magic to work on the very cute elves scenes.
"The Singing Bone" has Terry-Thomas and Buddy Hackett as Ludwig and Hans, they are searching for the legendary Singing Bone. They find the entrance to a cave where the thing is supposedly hidden.
Once inside the cave, Hans discovers that the Singing Bone is guarded by a big old dragon!!
Ludwig is a big chicken and tries to elude the reptile, but, the mean old dragon uses its fiery breath to send a message to the guy hiding behind a rock!
Anyway, Hans takes on the dragon and kills it after sticking a long sword in to the monster. After the stabbing, it leaks out a ton of pink smoke... Go figure!
The end finds the brothers signing a contract for their book of fairy tales, making them very popular with the children, besides making some big bucks! Join us again Wednesday when Eegah!! haunts this space!!
1 comment:
In the singing bone, they weren't looking for a singing bone guarded by a dragon. you may want to correct that. the dragon was harassing the kingdom. the one man killed the dragon, and the other man killed him to take the credit and buried him. After a few years a tree grew there. A shepard boy found a bone under the tree and carved it out to make a flute. When the boy played it, it sang a song telling of the murder.
The shepard boy plays the tell tale flute before the king, and the king summons the man who had been branded a hero for slaying the dragon.
Once justice is served, the flute flies out of the shepard boy's hand and stands up. Then the skeleton of the murdered man gathers itself together back with the singing bone, and then also the flesh and the murdered man comes back to life. The stop action on this skeleton was pretty amazing to see.
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