The Star Prince

A poor woodcutter finds a baby in the woods and take the child home, thinking him a star prince. A few years later, grown into 8-year-old Zoe Rae, he is confronted with a beggar woman who is actually his mother. He rejects her, and a fairy curses him. He decides he needs to find the beggar and apologize, so he goes on a quest, meeting a princess and the dwarf who wants to marry her.

Madeline Brandeis' film is largely populated by children who wander around a fairy tale landscape of woods, poverty, ugly old people and castles, with a few cute animals thrown in for audiences to ooh over. It has the rhythms and details of a fairy tale, and the editing is pretty good for 1918. Mrs. Brandeis would produce one other film, but her career seems to have moved into books, She would write a dozen or more childrens' books, most of which would center around a youngster who is called "Little" in the title. She would die in 1937 at age 39.

The Star Prince (1918)

** (out of 4)

A star fall from the skies and lands onto Earth when a man rushes out to it. He discovers a young boy laying next to the star so he brings him home. Over time the boy starts to call himself The Star Prince and he's a rude jerk at that. Before long he belittles a beggar that turns out to be his mother so a fairy turns him into an ugly boy. Now he must set out to find his mother and ask for her to forgive him.

Madeline Brandeis was a female director who worked as an independent. She wrote and directed her films and this includes this one, which was recently released in a boxset celebrating female filmmakers. You know, I'm not going to sit here and say that this was an entertaining movie because it really wasn't. At the same time there was still something very unique and strange about this movie that helped keep it mildly watchable if you're a fan of silent cinema.

Whenever I watch an independent movie from this era I'm always struck by the simple look and often cheap look of the production. I'm certainly not bashing this film for looking cheap because it used the cheapness to be more creative in ways. Just check out the burning star that is on the ground after the crash. Check out the fairy land towards the end of the movie. These aren't Hollywood sets but they have their own unique feel.

The film has some major problems including the Star Prince himself. You just dislike this kid so much that you don't want to see anything good happen to him. The performances were also mostly weak ones and there's no question that at times the story drags even though the film only runs 54-minutes.

With all of that being said, there are enough interesting moments to make THE STAR PRINCE worth watching once.