Divagazioni erotiche

This film must be one of the earliest examples of combining classical Fairy Tales with (soft) pornography. Several of the classic fairy tales of the Brother's Grimm (Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, Cinderella, and a few others) have been mixed together to create a very unusual picture.

The film is 'adult' on many levels - obviously, there is a fair amount of sex and nudity; the humour is rather dark, ironic and cynical; and we also get to see a Cinderella version in which the step-sisters do cut their toes off (as they do in the original story if I recall it correctly).

In a strange way this mix works rather well - and after a couple of days since I watched it I still cannot get the catchy theme tune out of my head.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by Rolf Thiele; Produced by Gerald Martell; released in America as "Grimm's Fairy Tales for Adults" by Cinemation Industries. Screenplay by Thiele; Photography by Wolf Wirth; Edited by Waltraut Hopp; Music by Bernd Kampka. Starring Marie Liljedahl, Roswitha Birkle, Gaby Fuchs, Evelyn Dutree, Walter Giller and Kitty Kino.

Incredibly degenerate fantasy, catering to fans of various fetishes and perversions. Rarely has a film been so poorly-done, uninteresting and sick -although the actresses are beautiful, what they are asked to do is revolting: Cinderella's sisters cut off pieces of their feet (luridly simulated) in attempts to get the slipper to fit; Snow White sucks off a cow with scores of flies on her face and its udder, etc. Although never delivering the goods honestly, the film does service the audience in shooting as low as possible with a consistently crude attitude and dumb, flip contemporary dialogue predicated on dirty puns. It will be hard to top this film for dirty-mindedness, since a more explicit film will at least score points for realism. It's also a shame to see good fantasy concepts so poorly and unconvincingly executed.

Essentially this is a far more adult retelling of the classic fairy tales- Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, with some "slight" deviations- the wicked queen eats Snow White's supposed lady bits, Sleeping Beauty needs a lot more than a kiss to "fully" awaken and Cinderella's evil stepsisters actually cut off parts of there feet.

Well what can be said about this, a strange mix of nudity, sex, comedy and some very mild gore, however what comes over far more is the light moments, its actually quite funny at times. The story follows two brothers going through the forest, they first find Snow White, then stumble into what appears to be an orgy where everyone's out cold including Sleeping Beauty herself and finally Cinderella. The story zips along at a fair old pace with each situation becoming more outrageous and ridiculous as it goes, from animals trying to get it on with Ms White to her and the brothers sucking on a cows udders (its a very bizarre scene). Usually acting, direction, writing and all other technical aspects of a film would be up for review but in such a picture to look to seriously at such a film would be pointless and frankly stupid, because all of its absurdities add to the charm of it all.

Unbelievably the Director Of Public Prosecutions here in the UK decided in its "wisdom" that this totally harmless film should be added to the Section 3 nasty list, meaning it could be seized by the police as obscene, because of violence not sex or nudity shockingly, shamefully ridiculous. It's a fun, silly little film that entertains through its bizarre story and set-pieces, although certainly not for all tastes, but if cult audiences take it for what it is go along for the ride and they'll be thoroughly entertained.

An earlier reviewer did a pretty good job of summarizing this film, so I'll demur to him (especially since he obviously saw an English language copy of this, while I was stuck with a German one). What's most interesting about this is that it isn't simply a parody or a "perversion" of classic children's fairy tales like "Snow White", "Cinderella", and "Sleeping Beauty" as it is a re-telling of the original Grimm's Fairy tales, which are certainly not as overtly sexual as this movie, but are much more more disturbing and polymorphously perverse than the Disney-fied version we're all used to today.

This movie has a strange bestiality sub-theme. The "Snow White" character, for instance, is nearly raped by a bear (who "Sleeping Beauty" later discovers to be an enchanted prince) in a scene that prefigures Walerian Borozyx later notorious film "The Beast". This connection between animals, women, and sex is present in the original Grimm's Fairy Tales, however, just in a less explicit form. Then there's gruesome scenes like when Cinderella's step-sisters abandon her in the woods and she's raped and nearly killed by bandits, but saved by a kindly(?) witch who tricks the bandits by substituting human body parts from her stew for the girl. If this isn't from a Grimm's Fairy Tale, it's definitely in the spirit of one(aside, of course, from the pretty graphic rape scene). This is also the only version of "Cinderella" I've seen that remains true to the original text by having the wicked step-sisters cut off parts of their own feet in an effort to fit into the glass slipper!

Of course, this movie also makes plenty of concessions to more modern-day sexploitation. It has an idiot "comedy" duo bumbling around throughout all the inter-connected stories messing everything up. The pair both kiss "Sleeping Beauty" at the same time which somehow turns her into a raving nymphomaniac, but then no one, including (initially) the bear, will have sex with her (which is quite ridiculous as she is beautiful and practically naked). Then there's "Snow White" who for some reason is dressed in little more than a g-string in most of her scenes (but since she's played by luscious Swedish actress Marie Llijedahl I'm sure nobody will complain). Her seven dwarfs at one point revive her by smearing paint on her bare breasts, and the prince finally breaks her enchantment by doing more than just kissing her. There's also the most notorious scene where Llijedahl orally milks a cow, which is either obscene or very perverse (or perhaps completely innocent if you grew up as a Swedish farm girl). Even the most faithful story, "Cinderella" includes some full-frontal nudity and a racy catfight.

This movie is obviously "for adults" as the English-language title says, but it's nevertheless more faithful to the source material than the Disney versions of these stories.