The Dangerous Christmas of Red Riding Hood

I read all of the previous reviews of this Made for TV Movie and IMO only a few folks "got it". This is not going to be as much of a review as it is "background" information.

First, it was not seen LIVE. It was pre-recorded in a Studio in Brooklyn, NYC. I was there during the shooting.

At the time my dad was "General Manager of Institutional Advertizing" for General Electric, and this was a GE Theater Production.

I'm not going to refute any of the individual criticisms, such as the effeminate Ritchard...he was effeminate, but I didn't see this as the negative that the reviewer did. "Female" wolves also eat.

Liza was brilliant! Not only is she extremely talented, coming from Minelli/Garland genes, but I got a chance to meet her at the shooting and spend quite a bit of time with her...so I AM somewhat biased. I fell in love with her.

Being a son of a GE Marketing Bigwig did have its benefits back during that time period. As one of the Managers of the GE Pavilion at the NY World's fair in '64-'65 I was treated as a VIP not only at the GE Pavilion, but everywhere else as well getting back-door passes to all other Pavilions. Another benefit was being invited to the TDCoRRH shooting. I was 15 at the time, old enough to appreciate meeting Liza and Burden. From that experience I became a life-ling Minelli fan and never played another Burden or "The Animals" record again. Unfortunately, I also spent some time with Burden, and I learned that he will never experience a time where he is not loved, and he is loved best while he's alone.

Fortunately I was able to get a hold of the DVD, however unfortunately it was never remastered. It is still the grainy quality of the original SD release. Yet, occasionally I still pop it in the player and enjoy it just as much with each viewing. I only wish that my father was still around to enjoy it with me.

I was able to see a grainy print of this "movie" at a revival theater. I don't know where they got the print, but it's a real shame that it's not out on video or DVD. It is jaw droppingly awful in a way that makes it hysterically funny.

Liza Minnelli gives an early, clunky performance as Red Riding Hood and Cyril Richard is a scream as the wolf/granny. The best moment is when the two of them sing "Ding-a-Ling". Cyril looks ridiculous dressed up and hamming it up as granny, while Liza jumps around the tv set doing some of the worst dance moves ever recorded on film.

See this movie if you ever get a chance, it's priceless.

The wolf pack being The Animals. I found this in a greeting card store about 10 years ago in the discount video rack for about 2 bucks so, yes it does exist on video. You end up hitting the fast forward button till you reach Eric Burdon & the boys (they are featured doing one or two songs) unless you are a Vic Damone or Liza fan. I was hoping someone would post the Animals bits on Youtube so the whole world could enjoy it for free. I would not recommend anyone paying more than a couple dollars for this. As other reviews have said, the story is really thin. Why the Xmas theme is beyond me. It has been pointed out that the reason ABC did this was so they could link it with the holiday season so they could show it again & again every year, but something has to be really special & strike a chord with people for that to happen. Boy were they wrong. Cyril Ritchard is great though.

What do you get when you throw a ton of money at top Broadway talents for a "sure fire" holiday special and toss in a popular rock group for demographic appeal? Well, historically and forever anything that people assume will be "sure fire" isn't - and THE DANGEROUS Christmas OF RED RIDING HOOD (or OH WOLF, POOR WOLF! as the sub title ran - a spoof on the relatively recent Arthur Kopit stage farce "Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mother's Hung You In The Closet and I'm Feeling So Sad" and typical of the "wit" of the script) is a perfect example.

Top billed Cyril Ritchard was (and remains) beloved of American audiences for his Captain Hook in Mary Martin's PETER PAN (with part of its score by Jule Styne); Liza Minnelli had already made the beginning of a major mark on stage Off-Broadway in a revival of BEST FOOT FORWARD and had won a Tony for her Broadway debut in the marginally successful Kander and Ebb musical FLORA THE RED MENACE (her incongruous first costume here looks like something from that show); Styne and Merrill's FUNNY GIRL was in its second year on Broadway, and they were both working on shows for the following season (Styne would win a Tony for HALLELUJAH, BABY - Merrill would come acropper with his BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S closing in previews). How could they go wrong with a little hour long holiday special?

Quite easily it turned out - although nothing much was lost at the time. No one had a lot to lose, and with Styne and Merrill as Executive Producers, there was no one to push for better. The work was tossed off without the care and craft that would go into something which had to sustain a run on stage. It filled a time slot and was decent fun even if it was no one's best work ("Ding-A-Ling" is fairly definitive proof that pop/rock music was not Styne or Merrill's métier).

Not one particularly distinguished tune or lyric emerged (the "Red Riding Hood" number sets the tone of sustained silliness with its anachronistic rhymes and jokes), and the wit in the book credited to Robert Emmett never went much beyond the only partially fulfilled concept of telling the story of "Red Riding Hood" from the Wolf's point of view. Despite the presence - mainly for the joke of the group's name - of the pop group "Eric Burdon and The Animals" in the supporting cast (they do awfully well in the Lee Theodore's sprightly 60's choreography), the show essentially disappeared after the initial November 28, 1965 Thanksgiving broadcast over the ABC Network (one supposes the link was EVERYONE going to Grandmother's house for Thanksgiving Dinner) until a cheap black and white holiday VHS video (a kinescope?) appeared in discount Christmas bins a decade or so ago.

With a slightly better print now available on DVD, the show is an interesting view for what is there. Ritchard is, as always, a delight in the lead role of the Big not-so-Bad Wolf narrating the piece in flash-back from his "cell" in the zoo, even when allowed to raise his perpetually arched eyebrows a trifle too high. The very young Liza Minnelli (Red Riding Hood - "her real name was Lillian") is just approaching her full powers and the potential is obvious. The talent is still very raw, but it is undeniably impressive ('though it would take a far stronger director than Sid Smith to reign her in and get a polished performance). It is clear why, the following fall, she would be rejected in her audition for Sally Bowles in the original CABARET - Sally was supposed to be worldly but *not* supposed to be a first class performer, and No one would believe a Minnelli Sally producing the required character shadings or that she could do no better than performing in a basement in Berlin at this point in her career.

Fanciers of early 60's pop music get a glance of both Vic Damone as Minnelli's Woodsman/love interest and The Animals as the "Wolf Pack. Both were popular at the time, and while nothing in the Styne/Merrill score is as good as anything in Merrill's score for BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY'S (which finally got recorded more than 25 years after it closed on Broadway!), nothing in it is painful either and all is musically very well performed by all concerned.

Pleasant little artifact and a diverting holiday trifle. Nothing more, nothing less . . . but it might have been much, much more.

The Dangerous Christmas Of Red Ridding Hood was an extremely big deal at my house, and it had nothing at all to do with the movie content. The show was sponsored by General Electric, and at the time my father was GE's Advertising General Manager.

Much of what was written is true in that I can remember the production being somewhat silly, but I guess that really was more of the intent.

However, the lasting impression the production made on me was due to the fact that I was fortunate to be present at the shooting. Fortunate in that I was a 14 year old boy getting to meet Liza Minnelli, who was but 19 herself, and probably because my father asked her to, she spent about an hour's time communicating with me, and I have loved her ever since.

Unfortunately, for probably the same reason, Eric Burden did the same and I was not at all impressed as I thought him to be...a word I would have used at that time...a jerk.

Anyway, when the show finally aired we had family friends over to watch it with us, and from the other comments written here they were probably being nice, but I remember the comments being congratulatory.

Tom