A musical version of the classic story about a miller's daughter who receives help from a mischievous dwarf, then ends up over her head.
Director: David Irving
Stars: Amy Irving, Billy Barty, Clive Revill, Priscilla Pointer.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093891/
Watched online, ok print.
6 songs in the Soundtracks.
Quite the family affair: director and star are siblings, children of Priscilla Pointer, who plays the Queen.
BB (b. '24) has 56 film credits from '30 to '97, and TV extends to '99. This is his 44th film.
Although this has a couple of familiar faces, it's just not good. IMDb rated 5.5 with 568 votes sorta agrees with that. I don't know how long it would take to read the full fairy tale, but it feels like about 10 min worth of story here, stretched. Here's a 12 min video that claims to be the whole story (I couldn't even listen to the whole thing), and here is a text that claims it takes 3-5 min to read (they admit it's adapted for youngsters, but who else would want to read this?).
The film doesn't really add any pleasures beyond reading it. The spinning room is a very dark and spooky prison cell. AI is pretty enough, but has very limited singing range, and I only know that from the falters here. I don't recognize the Prince, and he's not terribly attractive, but he's disguised as a non-royal. BB looks much the worse for wear, or is that makeup (as 1 reviewer said). The King & Queen are cartoony-evil, which is appropriate.
I suppose if you wanted to park a kid in front of a tv for over an hour, you could try this. But I'm not convinced modern youth would sit still for this either.
The Cannon Group & more, dir. Irving; 5
