The Sky Princess

At first, I had never seen or heard of this short... Until I watched it online on YouTube, and after that, I'd love it.

I loved that this short is a fairy tale. I still love fairy tales, though I am 26 years old. Anyway, this short is an original fairy tale about a prince who sails on his flying ship to an enchanted castle in the clouds to save a beautiful, sleeping princess from a nasty witch. I also love that they put Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty waltz as part of the short's score.

Historically, stop-motion animation is the earliest form of animation, starting with the German film The Adventures of Prince Achmed from 1926. So overall, that is all I could say, and this short is one of my favorite shorts.

George Pal mashes up the fairy tales of Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, and the Ice Queen to tell this tale of how an evil witch kept a beautiful princess asleep in a high tower. Then one day a handsome youth entered, playing the Sleeping Beauty Waltz on a violin. The princess awoke, the witch vanished, and the youth and princess danced to the Tschaikovsky music.

This is the essence of Pal's work in these years, when his series for Paramount was called "Madcap Models" beautifully elaborate stop-motion models, good stories, and music that triumphs over evil.

The last words the narrator speaks are "...and they lived happily ever after." But George Pal was Hungarian. I prefer te sort of ending that Hungarian fairy tales offer: "And if they haven't died, they are dancing still".