The Princess and the Frog (2009)

By Cinema Muse

Being a lover of the Art Deco Era in which this movie is set, I absolutely could not resist reviewing it. Like most Disney animated films, it's not without it's problems, but I still find a lot to admire in The Princess and the Frog. Pixar head honcho John Lassiter had a large part in the restart of the Disney hand-drawn features, and his influence shows clearly in the quality of this film, which is higher than that of any Disney animated film since Mulan (I'm not counting Enchanted since it was mostly live action). It also features an earnestness in storytelling that recent Disney fare seems to have forgotten in the din pop culture references and cheap humor, and I think that quality will make this film stand the test of time.

Right out of the gate, I have to give Disney a lot of credit for capturing both the look and sound of 1920s New Orleans. Even though Tiana's waitress uniform and princess dresses are fairly generic-looking instead of having the feel of the period, the rest of the costumes and scenery are spot on, much to my delight. As much as this accuracy pleases me, though, I tried not to let it blind me from the movie's faults--and believe me, there are a few. As much as I like the score, moreover, I  don't think the songs are quite as strong as they were in past films like Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin.

Perhaps the most enjoyable element of this film is the characterization, especially of Tiana and Prince Naveen. Ironically both are extremely materialistic, though Tiana doesn't realize how much that aspect of her personality has affected her. I feel like with Prince Naveen we get our first real depiction of royalty from Disney: a selfish, womanizing spendthrift who plans to marry for money. This is an improvement because it shows young girls that having a royal title doesn't necessarily make a man a desirable mate. Whereas Charlotte is prepared to marry Naveen purely to become a princess, Tiana won't even consider him until he has a major change of heart. I also find Naveen's chagrin at being raised to be "decoratively useless"--i.e. having no life and survival skills--to be quite believable, a common complaint of coddled children. Tiana's simple act of teaching him to cook, therefore, empowers him to take control of his own life instead of remaining a sponge. In fact his fulfillment in learning that skill reveals to us that his whole previous lifestyle was really what Pascal would call "diversion," a ploy to distract him from his meaningless existence. Once Naveen finds a purpose in helping Tiana achieve her dream, everything else takes is proper place in the order of importance for his life. He can still have fun playing the ukulele on occasion, but fun is no longer the point of his life.

Tiana's problem is much more subtle than her love interest's. Although she basically had a good upbringing. she has become quietly obsessed with the necessity of making money in order to realize her dream of owning a swank restaurant. Of course there's nothing wrong with having a dream and working hard to make it a reality, but Tiana takes it to an unhealthy level when she starts neglecting the people who love her in order to make make every penny she can. The lesson she learns from her father's example in the end is that sharing joy and love with others will make your life worthwhile regardless of whether or not your achieve your personal goals. Of course Tiana gets her restaurant in the end, but it's no longer the most important thing in her life because she's realized that people are far more valuable than things. Really it's not something that she didn't already know, but she's learned to evaluate how well she's living up to her standards, which is something that everyone needs to know.

Despite this flaw in her character, Tiana's initiative in pursuing her dream is truly admirable. Unlike other Disney princesses who yearn for something more without any idea of how they can go about getting it, she has a plan and she executes it to some success. To Disney's credit, this is the first time they had a princess in a situation where it would not be anachronistic for her to have entrepreneurial aspirations, and they manage to create a character who can incorporate these attributes without feeling like a feminist firebrand. The problem with those kind of characters are their complete rejection of traditional women's roles and the bitterness that usually accompany their viewpoint. I'm not saying that all feminists are bitter and wish to reject all traditional women's roles, but I want to emphasize that the extreme ones often paint their issues in black-and-white terms that ruthlessly villainize men in order to justify their viewpoint to an audience whom they perceive to be hostile to their stance. Their actions ultimately seem counterproductive because they only serve to foment more hatred on an already sensitive subject That being noted, there are some moments in this film where we can sense Tiana's frustration and resentment at the disadvantages that gender and racial prejudice cause her along with the poverty of her circumstance, but for the most part she seems to be a loving, well-adjusted woman. She also doesn't shy away from taking on traditional family roles (being a good wife and daughter), which attests to the fact that living for others can be just as fulfilling as accomplishing personal goals.

As I said above, one thing I really admire about this film is the earnestness of the storytelling. Yes, it does have funny moments and comic relief characters, but they are never loud enough to detract from the heart of the story, which is evaluating priorities and a rejection of strict materialism. It also warms my heart that Tiana, Ray, and Louis all have fairly far-fetched dreams, but those dreams are respected and fulfilled, even if not in the way they expected it. Only Charlotte's and Naveen's selfish dreams become the subject of ridicule and rightly so. I also appreciate how seemingly selfish people like Naveen and Charlotte can change, which is always more enjoyable than having them stay static characters.

Even though I love this movie greatly, I want to emphasize that I like as an adult, but I don't think it's at all suitable for children. I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record with these Disney films, but I really do feel like they are often too scary for young children. The demonic elements of the Shadow Man character are particularly frightening to me, as are the way his demon cohorts operate in the middle of the night and the way they literally drag him down to hell in the end. That's a bit much for little kids to take. It's also quite sad the way Ray dies in the end, even though he gets to live on as a star with Evangeline. I know if I were a kid, though, I'd still find it emotionally crippling. 

So in the end, The Princess and the Frog pretty much succeeds in recapturing the glory days of Disney animated features. Apart from the overly scary moments, this film has heart, charm, and excellent production values. In addition the fact that it's a period piece and that it lacks pop cultural references means that it should continue to be enjoyed by generations to come. If Disney can keep up the pace in it's future endeavors, I shall watch their progress with considerable enthusiasm.

**Please check out Cinema Muse's blog of classic Hollywood and book adaptation reviews at Seeing Sepia

Enchanted (2007)

By Cinema Muse

Ten years after they made their first film questioning the princess archetype, Disney would revisit these problems with their hilarious parody Enchanted. I have to hand it to Disney for making a film that satirizes its bread-and-butter, especially when it was the first traditionally animated feature (or at least partially so) they'd produced in the better part of a decade. Of course admitting that their starry-eyed optimistic take on life is wrong would be shooting themselves in the foot, but they do a good job mocking the over-the-top nature of some of their stories anyway.

Our protagonist Giselle is the typical sweet, mindless Disney princess of the pre-Renaissance era who looks only for her handsome prince to come and take her to her happily ever after. She gets her wish by literally falling into the lap of a prince, who vows to marry her in the morning. Before this can happen, however, the prince's evil stepmother contrives to send Giselle to another world where there are no "happily ever afters," thus preventing the prince from ascending to the throne upon his marriage. The whole sequence is such a clever amalgamation of iconic scenes from other Disney movies, especially the three original princess films, and it's so delightfully tongue-in-cheek that I can't help dissolving into  giggles every time I see it.

Of course the dismal land of "no happily ever afters" is our own sweet reality, and Giselle drops right into the middle of the particularly inhospitable New York City. Very quickly she learns that her particular skill sets--singing, sewing, etc--will not get her far in the Asphalt Jungle. Again displaying great fortune, she happens to run into a kindly man named Robert whose young daughter is convinced that Giselle is a real princess right out of her storybooks, something Robert emphatically refuses to believe.

One essential problem with the Disney princess character becomes abundantly clear when Giselle meets Robert. After he catches her when she falls off a billboard, she tells him her story, in which she mentions getting to New York by falling down a well. Catching the irony, Robert asks her, "Is this a habit of yours, falling off things?" Giselle responds, "Well, usually someone catches me." Giselle, you see, relies on other people to get her out of scrapes instead of learning to take care of herself. That kind of attitude is a flatly unhealthy. Of course there's nothing wrong with having your friends help you out in a pinch, but that's no excuse for staying helpless yourself. After all, you can never tell when you'll be alone and need to get by on your own abilities. You can't always count on even the best of friends being there for you every time. I'm sorry for spelling out something that should be completely self-evident like this, but it needs to be said for the sake of rhetoric. Because it's the rightly-noted problem with the old school Disney Princesses.

Most of the film is taken up in the iconoclast between Robert's hard-nose practicality and Giselle's resilient idealism. Like most studies of this nature, Enchanted concludes that the best road is somewhere in the middle, but just how close to each side is this happy mean? I don't think this movie clearly states where exactly that mean lies, but the thesis seems to be that it's in different places for different people. In fact the conclusion may simply be to avoid the extremes personified by Robert and Giselle in the first place. I say this because Robert's streetwise ways are a great help to the inexperience of Giselle, and so is her optimism for him when he begins to despair. In that sense their personalities greatly complement each other.

Giselle's two big character moments as a princess are when she asks Prince Edward to take her on a date before they get married and when she scales the skyscraper to rescue Robert. Obviously the first part is important because she realizes that she needs to get to know the man she loves before she marries him, and thus base their relationship in more than just emotions. The second scene is equally important, however, because it shows that she's learned to continue fighting even when things look bleak. Earlier in the film when Giselle realizes that she cannot be with Robert, her despair leads her to fall prey to the evil queen's poison apple, which she tells Giselle will make her forget her heartache. Becoming cynical or giving up on true love, therefore, should not be our answer when we realize that the path of true love is a daunting obstacle course with many dead ends.

That brings us to the sad reality at which this movie hints, namely that the reason characters like Robert and his fiance Nancy are such jaded individuals is because they became disenchanted with the Disney fairytale mentality. In Robert's case we learn from his backstory that his first wife left him shortly after their daughter's birth, destroying his illusion of true love. Nancy too seems to yearn for a fairytale life, but she remains ready to believe the worst of the man she loves the first time she finds him in a compromising situation. Finally Giselle falls victim to this disenchantment, and in her case it nearly proves fatal. And I can't help thinking that the Disney idealism is what created this mess in the first place, since without that kind of idealization of romance, those characters would not experience a disconnect with reality in the first place. Which leaves me to wonder if this whole project isn't just Disney's way of making amends for a problem that they themselves create and perpetuate.

In the end, though, our belief in true love is affirmed, and the film turns out to be a pure joy to watch. The score by Alan Menken is memorable with tongue-in-cheek moments, euphonious melodies, and just enough sincerity to win us over in the end. The plot is well-crafted--except I can't help thinking that it would be more efficient to have Prince Edward murdered than trying to kill any girl he falls for--and the characters believable except for the cookie-cutter villain. Just when we all thought Disney was dead, it's so pleasant to find that you can teach an old mouse new tricks.

**Please check out Cinema Muse's blog of classic Hollywood and book adaptation reviews, Seeing Sepia

Hercules (1997)

By Cinema Muse

Although I believe this movie qualifies for Disney Princess status--heck, marrying a demi-god beats marrying a lousy old prince any day--it's usually not included on the list because a) it wasn't that successful in theaters, and b) Megera isn't technically a princess in Disney's version of the story, though she certainly was a princess in the Greek myth. I also really think she should be included because she was the very first anti-princess character in a Disney movie, and it always speaks both to the influence and weaknesses of the type when an anti-type is produced.

Obviously the most appropriate person to review a Disney film making fun of Greek mythology would be a Greek-American, and fortunately I am both genetically and culturally qualified for the daunting task. As a child I was both strangely attracted to this movie by my ethnic ties and repelled by the subject's dark moments. In fact, when I first heard that Disney was going to make a children's movie out of a Greek myth, I thought it an impossible task considering everyone short of the two virgin goddesses is promiscuous in those stories. Somehow Disney manages to alter the plot in order to weed out the gratuitous sex, and they also make everything look and sound superficially Greek, neither of which is any mean feat. Still, the movie is so blatantly anachronistic in order to put in pop culture references that we can never suspend our disbelief and think it's really Ancient Greece. But I must admit that I enjoy the mention of food like pita and mousaka enjoyable along with the casual mention of other myths. It's not Greek, but it's a very pleasing imitation, especially since Greek Mythology is such a ripe subject for satire.

Despite the cultural ties, though, I did not watch this movie much as a kid because my mother considered the villain too dark. Hades and his underworld abode are admittedly creepy, but I didn't find him that intimidating both because he was a wisecracker and because I was older when the film first came out. Still, the Fates in this film are revolting, and the hydra is truly frightening at moments. I could have taken this, however, were it not for the fact that Meg actually dies in the end--and not in that Snow White death-like-sleep way, either, but legitimate death. You know, the kind where if Dr. McCoy had been around he'd have said, "She's dead, Jim!" Even as a kid I knew that the film wouldn't end on that note, but the fact that a main character like that could bite the bullet still makes the movie quite disturbing for children's fare.

Let's concentrate on Megera, though, shall we? In my youth I really didn't understand her appeal as a character because I didn't have the life experience to appreciate her plight and motivation. I though she was too cynical, callus, and scheming to be a sympathetic character, even though her commentary made me laugh at times. I couldn't comprehend at that age the pain that would cause a woman to become that jaded, but since I've experienced some modicum of the suffering she goes through, she quickly skyrocketed up my list of memorable Disney characters. Meg is basically the Dulcinea archetype, the Jean Arthur character in a Frank Capra film (See Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Mr. Deeds Goes to Town to see what I mean). She's the good girl who has turned apathetic from overexposure to vice and corruption. Hiding behind the veil of cynicism, she's even managed to convince herself that she no longer cares about right and wrong until she meets Hercules.

Like our "princess" herself, our hero Hercules is hardly a moral paragon either. Although he has a functioning conscience, he becomes a "hero" for entirely selfish reasons. In addition he's extremely dense and unexperienced, or to quote Blackadder, he's "as thick as clotted cream that's been left out by some clot until the clots are so clotted that they couldn't be un-clotted with an electric de-clotter." But Herc's naivety and the way he treats Meg with dignity win her heart and revives her morality. Herc treats Meg like a princess without any ulterior motives, and once she realizes the sincere value he places on her, she regains her self-respect and with it her ability to stand up for what she believes in.

We must bear in mind that this awakening of consciousness is no mean feat because Meg has been horribly abused by men in the past, so her resentment is deep-rooted. Being myself one of many women who have been the victims of unscrupulous men--and indeed physical and emotional abuse against women has become increasingly common--I find her unwillingness to trust men very believable. Indeed when you've been betrayed by the person you love and esteem most in the world, it's completely natural to become suspicious of the everyone you meet. Not only do we find out that Meg was betrayed by the man she loved, but to add insult to injury she then became the slave of the evil-incarnate lord of the underworld. So the abuse and debasement she suffers is double and ongoing when she meets Hercules.

Actually, when we learn Meg's backstory, we realize that she is a victim of the princess mentality, which is why she becomes an anti-princess. Like the Disney Princesses we know and love, Meg used to be a virtuous girl who would do anything for true love, even selling her soul to the devil in order to save the man she loves. Unfortunately, just like many women today, Meg learns the hard way about the dangers of giving her heart too freely. After she sells her soul to win her beloved's freedom, he runs off with another woman, leaving Meg with years of enslavement to contemplate her mistake. So being a Disney Princess got Meg in serious peril.

In fact women like Meg danger in the face of scheming men every day of their lives, and the princess archetype so prevalent in our culture and especially narratives aimed at women only tend to exacerbate that problem. Those narratives tell women that their lives aren't fulfilled unless they're in a romantic relationship; they tell them that they should love men in spite of often egregious faults; and they tell them that love can solve any problem. All three of these statements are flatly false and dangerous to believe. They are also a bit redundant considering that women are already genetically programed to form strong attachments and forgive the wrongs of people they love. That what keeps us from murdering our children. So having mass media that tell us to cultivate these qualities without tempering them with reason poses a serious threat.

Let me just point out three ways in which this mentality can be harmful if it goes unchecked. First of all telling women that her life is meaningless without love can make those women desperate for love, and thus willing to get involved with guys that will mistreat them. Secondly the mentality makes women think they should overlook and forgive unhealthy behavior in the name of love, which often leads men to abuse this clemency and continue indulging their vices. And finally this mentality can make women stay in a bad relationship, hoping that the strength of their love and commitment will win out in the end. Scratch the surface of any woman who has experienced physical, sexual, mental, or emotional abuse at the hands of her significant other, and you will find these these values trapping her in the unhealthy situation, blinding her to the seriousness of her plight. Thus the Disney Princess Syndrome is extremely perilous to the mentality of young women, if they don't know how it can be manipulated against them.

Back to the plot of the film, however, when Meg feels herself falling in love, her fist instinct is a fight-or-flight response. This produces the best number in the film, "I Won't Say I'm in Love," and it also shows that the great labor that Hercules must perform in this film is not the defeat of Hades' monsters and titans but rather influencing Meg's change of heart. This isn't to say, however, that the defeat of Hades' minions doesn't play a part in influencing Meg's revival. When Hercules first "rescues" her, she thinks his whole heroism and chivalry act is a naive joke at best. The thought of good triumphing over evil seems impossible from her perspective, but Hercules shows that fighting for a better world isn't a futile endeavor. We see her change begin when he slays the hydra and she's genuinely glad that Hades' evil plan has been thwarted. She seems to experience similar elation with all his other successes, and by the time Hades thinks of the idea of having Meg seduce Hercules to learn his weakness, she flatly refuses until Hades offers her freedom as a reward. Even though she accepts his dirty bargain, she immediately regrets it when she goes on a date with him and gets to see how much he truly values her as a person.

Once Meg learns value herself, she gains the initiative she needs to stand up to Hades and do the right thing even at the cost of her life--just as Hercules will truly give his to save hers. In that sense, therefore, they are a well-matched couple. After all, you can't get hurt as badly as Meg did in the first place unless you care very deeply about things.

So while Meg starts out as an anit-Princess type who doesn't want men in her life and doesn't believe in fighting for virtue, she gets a reversion of values and with it a traditional happy ending. This was the first Disney movie that told a cynical generation that maybe the status quo didn't have to say the way they hated it to be, even though it still told them they could solve their problems with the right man. Whether or not they agreed with Disney's new thesis, it was nice to see the wizened point-of-view acknowledged by the studio of dreams and idealism without undermining those optimistic values. They'd pick up the same theme ten years later for their 2D animation revival, Enchanted, a more thorough treatment of the subject.

Hercules may be a problematic film in a lot of ways--especially in the accuracy to Greek mythology--but it succeeds at least in its portrayal of Meg. She takes us beyond the princess archetype, but in returning to it in the end, affirms it's power over our imagination. We may not like that she affirms the Disney Princess model in the end, but at least she points out its dangers to us.

**Please check out Cinema Muse's blog of classic Hollywood and book adaptation reviews, Seeing Sepia

Sleeping Beauty (1959)

By Cinema Muse

Although I found this movie far too scary to watch as a child, I enjoy it greatly now that I'm older. One of the key reasons for this is because they used the music from Tchaikovsky's magnum opus, The Sleeping Beauty for most of the score. As an admirer of Tchaikovsky, therefore, I'm already hooked on that point. Sleeping Beauty, however, is a very different film from anything Disney made before or since. While some of the innovations are positive and it proves to be a beautifully lyrical production, however, fans of the older style Disney production may find this film somewhat lacking.

One major point in which this film differs from the rest of the Disney oeuvre is in the animation. The incredible animators at Disney tried their best to make the art look like illustrations in a medieval tapestry, and they succeeded to a large extent. So we are treated to the bright colors and flat, angular style of the Middle Ages, which certainly renders a fairytale aspect to the proceedings. Until that point, Disney had tried to do their full-length films in a semi-realistic style with some cartoon-ish shapes and flourishes reserved for comic relief characters. Animation aesthetics started changing in the 1950s to a more abstract style, but the ultra-traditional Disney had been slow to adapt. In Sleeping Beauty, however, Disney proved that the new taste could be catered to while paying homage to the great illustration traditions of the past, thus preserving an antiquated feel.

In addition to these aspects, Sleeping Beauty also differs from its predecessors and successors in that it lacks the great quantity of musical numbers that we expect to see in a Disney animated feature--though Disney had started straying from that model in the '50s as well. That tends to make it less appealing to young children, who sometimes need those kind of bells and whistles to hold their attention. Combined, moreover, with the fact that the cast of characters is so small and that the only real comic characters are the three good fairies and the two kings, it doesn't seem to paint with as broad a brush as the other princess films.

In my opinion this change is both a good and bad thing. Obviously it's good in that we get more of a relationship between our prince and princess than we get in Snow White or Cinderella. It also means that the comic antics don't detract from the overall plot as they do in the two aforementioned films, especially the former where Snow White's plot seems like a side note for two thirds of the picture where we watch the antics of the seven dwarfs. There are several digressions with the mice in Cinderella as well that really seem to bog down the plot, but there's also a reason why the writers found it necessary to put them in. After all, if you're marketing a movie to children, it's usually smart to add some cute comic characters performing silly antics, since kids eat that stuff up like an ice cream sundae with extra fudge. And now let's all admit that we remember those characters the best, shall we? So yes, they do serve their purpose, but their actions must relate to the plot somehow, and they mustn't take up too much space or we lose the thread of the story.

Perhaps one of the reasons that people feel the loss of comic relief characters in this film is because there are such frighteningly evil characters that need counterpoising. Maleficent, the evil fairy, looks as if she were pulled straight out of the pit of hell. Her character design with the demonic horns, green-grey skin, and flowing, jagged-edged purple and black robes make her appear every bit as evil, powerful, and deadly as she is. And when she transforms into a large, black, toothy dragon, she may be the most frightening thing that Disney ever animated apart from the devil himself in Fantasia. She also has legion of demon-imps that are hideous. Thus this film has a lot of truly frightening images that can scar small children for years without having enough cute, funny, and endearing moments to bring them back regardless of the villain.

So let's make no mistake, therefore: this movie does not work for little kids. How does it fare, however, for those of us who are a little more mature? Surprisingly well, in fact. To start with, we're treated to the most believable prince and princess that Disney had made up to this point, along with the most believable romance. For the first time, we get a prince with a name, and one who gets more more than five minutes of screen time. In fact he gets as much screen time as Aurora does, possibly more since he has to affect her rescue. I like that Prince Phillip is not idealized, not an archetype as his source material made him out to be. Instead he remains handsome and charming while still being fallible and human. I especially enjoy him falling into the creek with his horse and dancing and singing like an idiot around the castle when he's in love. He also actually has to earn his love by slaying monsters, so he gets points for being an action hero.

Now lets talk about our Princess. Aurora doesn't really have much more personality than Cinderella, but she has more of an excuse because she's only sixteen and she's led a very sheltered childhood. Like Cinderella, moreover, she's so lonely that you buy the fact that she falls in love with the first guy she meets, but since she does more than just dance with her prince, her infatuation is a little more understandable, as is her despair when she learns of her true identity and arranged marriage. Still, her actual romance marks a large leap towards more believable princesses. I think classing it as "love" would still be a stretch, though.

I said before that there isn't a lot of comic relief in this film, but let me give the good fairies some credit for being charming in their own right. First of all, they're not one-note performances, and when they're not bickering over color schemes, they can actually be quite competent, especially aiding Prince Phillip in battle. In addition they show grief when they realize that Aurora will be leaving them, which marks the first time we see sadness shown in that inevitable moment in fairytales when childhood ends and the past life must be left behind.

As I did with Cinderella, I'm trying to work out a moral for this film. There's something very deterministic about the way both the prophecy of the sleeping spell and the spell-breaking kiss come true despite both sides's attempts to prevent them. We are not, however, left with the feeling that our individual actions are meaningless because a) it's only by chance that Phillip and Aurora meet and thus unwittingly create the love that can break the evil spell, and b) Phillip sure needs a lot of initiative in order to defeat Maleficent. Maybe the moral is something like "if you do your best, things will come out right in the end because the power of good will eventually win out over evil," but that's so prosaic. I prefer instead to take a page from Jane Austen, and say that I can't quite decide "whether the overall tendency of this work seeks to recommend parental tyranny or reward filial disobedience." I say this because of course Aurora and Phillip have been promised to each other from birth but are in ignorance of this fact, which causes a rebellious complication. They fall in love with each other thinking that their hearts are free, and when they find out about their parents' have already arranged marriages for them, it's their very defiance of their parents that prevents them from discovering that their beloved and their betrothed are one and the same, which might perhaps have prevented Maleficent from having an opportunity to prey upon Aurora. Then again, if they had listened to their parents advice and forgotten their "Romance of the Forest," as I said before, they would not have possessed the means to break the spell. So as Jane Austen did, I leave the "overall tendency of this work to be determined."

To all of those people like myself that got scared stiff watching this film as a kid, I have to say that it definitely deserves a second look through adult eyes. While far from a perfect movie, it succeeds in feeling like a fairytale while fleshing out the characters just enough to make it believable and not distracting from the plot too much with comic relief the way most Disney movies do. Add to that mix a great score by Tchaikovsky and an interesting animation style, and it turns out to be quite a worthwhile way to spend ninety minutes of your time.

Cinderella (1950)

By Cinema Muse

Unlike yesterday's review, this film is a true pleasure to review because it was one of my favorites as a young child. First off, it doesn't contain anything scarier than a mean stepmother and a fat old tomcat.  It's also got plenty of cute songs and anthropomorphic animals along with a comically violent king and inept stepsisters. So yes, this is a truly kid-friendly Disney film. How rare are those? Well, at the time this film was made, they were non-existent.

Unfortunately this movie's very popularity and watchability has made it the target of relentless over-marketing and shameless sequels. The marketing may be distasteful, but it doesn't bother me nearly as much as the sequels. Call me simplistic, but when a movie ends with the words "and they lived happily ever after," that should be the final word. If you want the "happily ever after" concept challenged, let me refer you to a lovely little Preston Sturgess movie called The Palm Beach Story, which opens with a wedding and the caption "and they lived happily ever after--or did they?"Please don't do that to Cinderella unless it's a satire. Legitimate sequels ruin the whole point of a fairy tale.

Let me talk about why Cinderella is a much better protagonist than Snow White, namely because she actually has a believable personality. She actually behaves like a human being. Although she's a starry-eyed romantic and an optimist, she can still experience despair and even cynicism without having an existential crisis. I know people accuse her of being the most passive heroine, but at least she realizes that her situation is cruel, and she fails to talk herself out of being sad about missing the ball. And she takes a swing at Lucifer, much to everyone's delight. I also want to point out that she tells her stepmother that she has a right to go to the ball according to the wording of the royal proclamation, which is a certain degree of self-defense. She still lacks initiative, but she's a far cry from Snow White who feels bad about crying over her sorry plight and is uniformly cheerful through the rest of the film.

I want to take a moment to point out an interesting anachronism in Cinderella's wardrobe. I know most of you probably don't care, but since I have an interest in historical fashions, I can't help but notice these things. Cinderella has a clearly Victorian setting as evidenced by the setting, and both the men and women's costumes. To be more specific, the bustle skirts would indicate that it took place between 1870 and 1890. Now I want to point out that neither the pink dress Cinderella designs, her wedding dress, nor the silver gown her fairy godmother makes for her are period-correct. They all look like a take on 1950s gowns of varying degrees of formality--trust an avid vintage shopper on this. I'm sorry, Disney, but that just ruins the period feel for me.

Really, though, the biggest problem with the movie for me is the lack of a prince. Of course the Cinderella legend doesn't really mention the prince outside of the ball scene, so Disney didn't have much to work with. But one scene is not usually enough to establish a believable romance between two people, especially since they don't really speak to each other. I would have more respect for the prince if he went to look for her himself, but he doesn't. I will say, though, that watching the movie again recently made me think better of Cinderella because apparently she was in ignorance of the fact that she was dancing with the prince until the next morning. So kudos to her for falling in love with a guy without knowing who he was. It makes her less of a a gold-digger. But she gets negative points for being naive. Seriously, how could you not figure out he was a prince?

What can I really say about the moral of this film? It's a story of virtue rewarded, so Cinderella really just has to sit pretty while the mice and her fairy godmother manufacture the happy ending for her. Maybe it proves once and for all that it's not what you know but whom you know. Or maybe it's just the platitudinous "A friend in need is a friend indeed." It also makes me grateful that I live in a time where Child Services exists, though a lot of kids still don't fare a lot better than Cinderella did. Also I reject the notion that she could have run away from home considering she didn't have any money, and in the Victorian Era, she probably would have ended up a prostitute or starved to death. At best she could have offered herself as a domestic servant, but people didn't tend to hire them back then without references. So Cinderella doesn't really have any choices. Cut her some slack.

The Disney princess continues to evolve, and so does the Disney movie. Unfortunately it's going to be another forty years before we're going to get one with the spunk of a contemporary woman. But we can celebrate the little victories, along with a film that won't scare the pants off your three-year-olds.

**Please check out Cinema Muse's blog of classic Hollywood and book adaptation reviews, Seeing Sepia

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)

By Cinema Muse

Welcome to the first entry in our Disney Princess Series. We will be going through all the entries on this list in chronological order for the rest of the month, culminating with Alex's review of Disney's new take on the story of Rapunzel, Tangled.

When I was asked to do this review, I realized that I really needed to go back and watch it again because I hadn't actually seen it in nineteen years. There's a reason for that, too, namely that it was way too frightening for a wimpy kid like me. I really wanted to like this film when I was little, especially since it has many charming moments, but quite frankly it scared the pants off me. And when I went back to watch it again recently, I still found it profoundly creepy. Not only is the sorceress/queen frighteningly evil, but our princess gets put in a coffin, and there's disturbing, dark imagery throughout the film.

One thing I'll say about for this film, however, is that it hasn't been overly marketed with shameless sequels, which is good considering it would probably make Walt Disney's ashes spontaneously combust. Incredibly popular at the time of its release, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is all but overlooked by the current generation, and even classic Disney fans seem to find the film unpalatable compared to other old Disney movies like Cinderella and Peter Pan. So why is this former classic now such an ugly stepsister (pun intended)? I mean, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard were seen openly weeping with delight during the premiere, which opened to unanimously raving reviews. Why doesn't it touch us the same way anymore?

Well first off all films, like everything else, are a product of their time, and when you remove them from that context, some of the original significance will be lost. Secondly we live in very cynical times, and Snow White is perhaps the most earnest and artless of all Disney's films. I suppose Disney was trying to maintain the fairytale archetypes of Snow White and the prince, but in doing so he left them feeling very unsubstantial. Even though we see Snow White terrified in one scene, crying in another, and laughing with glee with the dwarfs, she always feels like a character, not a real person.

There's also something deeply disturbing about the way Snow White is drawn. The highly anachronistic '30s bob doesn't really bother me, but her over-sized hair bow, rounded face, squeaky voice, and lack of a bustline make her thoughts of romance with the prince seem disturbingly pedophilic, especially since everyone seems to refer to her as the "little princess." Still, the prince looks like he could still be a teenager or something, so it could be more of a Romeo-and-Juliet relationship, which is slightly less disturbing.

But is there a reason for Snow White's seeming blandness? I mean, the one moment when she shows a bit of logical frailty, she feels bad about her emotional outburst. I refer, of course, to her adventure in the woods when she finds out her stepmother wants to kill her and she must flee for her life. While running in the forest, her imagination acts up, and she imagines the dark gnarled trees are monsters. Finally, she is just so overwrought that she sits down and cries, which is very relate-able, but she goes and ruins the moment of pathos by saying that it was unpardonable to get so scared, and then sings a happy song.

When I saw that scene as an adult, however, the metaphorical light in my head kicked on. Snow White is meant to be an exemplar character, embodying the spirit of the 1930s. As such she is not allowed to let hardships get her down. Millions of Americans at the time were going through the same plight, losing their homes and dignity through no fault of their own, but they couldn't let themselves wallow in self-pity either. So yes, Snow White's bob is emblematic of her significance to her audience. She may be in medieval garb, but she's a woman of the '30s. And that means that audiences of the day could naturally feel a kinship to her because they could relate to her situation. Too bad it doesn't hold up in 2010.

Our protagonist, however, is not the only one who seems a little flat in this film. Although the dwarfs are supposed to be the most colorful characters in this film, their personalities are fairly one-note, and their humor extremely predictable. Also I noticed that the dwarf Happy doesn't really get much screen time. I suppose the writers just couldn't think of many amusing things for a character whose defining characteristic is mirth. I will say, however, that I found the forest animals to be charmingly endearing in their mute sympathy with Snow White and the way they helped her clean the dwarfs' house.

I also really like the music in this film, especially "Whistle While You Work," "Some Day My Prince Will Come," and the "Hi-Ho Chorus." I wouldn't say that any of the music is outstanding, but it all fits the intended mood nicely. Some of the orchestrations may feel dated now, but in the '30s, it must have seemed particularly powerful, since it would have fit the conventions of movie music better. The only problem I really have is that I find Snow White's nasally, weak soprano to be insipid at best and infuriating at worst.

Now let me say why I find this movie completely inappropriate for young children, namely the Evil Queen. The first image we get in the film is of this character conjuring an enslaved demon/spirit from the nether realm who speaks to her in the mirror. And if that weren't frightening enough, said demon of the mirror speaks in a deep, otherworldly voice calculated to scare. The next part that I found deeply disquieting as a child was when the Queen tells her huntsman to cut out Snow White's heart. That detail is a bit too gruesome for young kids. Then we get one of the most frightening sequences is all of cinema when the Queen learns that Snow White is still alive, and storms down into her dungeon lair to find a spell that will kill the princess once and for all. That scene is quite literally a descent into madness and death, and we have symbols of both lining the dark, dank dungeon where she mixes the potions that will poison the apple and transform herself into a hag. As she goes along to the dwarf's cottage, the Queen is followed by a pair of vultures who hang around for Snow White's death and the Queen's fight with the dwarfs, casting an ominous shadow over the whole proceedings. They are not just there for symbolism, however, because the play a role in the Queen's death. After she falls off the cliff and gets squished by a boulder--not that we get to see her squished body, mind you--the vultures swoop down to prey on her still-warm body. Yes, that's a bit excessive and gruesome. I mean, it's enough to see her fall off the cliff to know she's dead. The boulder and the vultures almost excite our pity. To cap off all this kid-friendly fare, we have to see our main character decked out in a coffin with everyone around in tears and dirge-like music playing. I mean, even knowing, as everyone does, that she will be awakened by a kiss does not stop this from being a profoundly sad scene, especially since the animators did a really good job of making her coffin look like the kind of medieval sculpture of the deceased that you would find on a tomb in a Gothic cathedral. I will, however, give this film credit for knowing how to play our emotions like a violin.

So Disney's first full-length feature is a solid outing with a lot of good points, but it remains too raw, too flawed to be enjoyed by children today. It certainly changed the industry, but it's easily eclipsed by later Disney outings, including the quintessential princess film which I shall be reviewing tomorrow.

**Please check out Cinema Muse's blog of classic Hollywood and book adaptation reviews, Seeing Sepia

Connie Willis: Remake

**Note: this is an except from a review I wrote for my blog Seeing Sepia. For the full article, please click here**

As a reviewer of Golden Age Hollywood films, I find myself among the countless people who look back longingly at the films of the mid-20th century and lament the loss of the "purity" of those films. Whether or not we're deluding ourselves remains to be seen, but it can certainly be argued that older movies had just as many problems as contemporary ones, albeit in different areas.

Apparently one of my favorite authors is among this group of rabid old movie fans. Connie Willis wrote a novella called Remake in the mid-'90s that was a love song to the Golden Age of film, and particularly the movie musical. I've known about this book for a while, but I found it difficult to procure a copy because it was never very popular. I finally read it recently, though, and since it fit in so well with my recent themes of musicals and Fred Astaire in particular, I thought I should include it.

In the near future, Willis envisions a Hollywood where CG rules the day. New live-action movies are a thing of the past, as it's much easier to place CG renderings of famous actors into new movies or remake old movie with an all-star cast of your choice. And if you don't like the ending to Casablanca you can change it on demand. It's a sort of post-modern dystopia where everything is simulated from sex to movie stars to feelings via designer drugs.

"Pride and Prejudice" (1980)

**This article was contributed by the Supreme Arbitress of Taste and is the final installment of "Pride & Prejudice Week.  I imagine there will be more reviews and responses to what has been posted, so keep your eyes peeled for those.**

For sheer accuracy to the book, I still maintain that you can't beat the 1995 BBC version, but surprisingly enough there's a contingency of people that prefer an early BBC adaptation from 1980. I honestly have very mixed feelings about this version. Although they did many things correctly--there's a lot to admire--I still feel like it's not as good as it's successor.

Elizabeth Garvie looks the part of Elizabeth Bennett better than any other
actress to take the role, but she lacks the sparkling personality though she's
certainly wise and reflective enough to fit the changes Elizabeth goes through.

Still, as this film remains largely unknown, I feel compelled to give a fairly detailed review. To start with, the opening credits of this miniseries are a delight to watch because they are a scroll over cartoon renditions of scenes from the episode which cannot help but make me laugh. The cinematography is not very good, but it beats other Austen adaptations of the era substantially. The music also is unremarkable without being bad. But really there's not much of it, and thus my remarks a limited.

Now let me talk about the Lizzie in this version, played by Elizabeth Garvie. I think she certainly had the look of Elizabeth, but she lacks the animation and cynicism central to the character. Instead we get a very quiet, reflective Miss Bennett, which makes her transition to greater self-awareness and love for Mr. Darcy more plausible than I've seen in any other version. Despite this I cannot get over how much she feels like of a pale imitation of the vivacious character we know and love in the first half of the film, so the performance ultimately falls flat for me.

This, however, is nothing compared to the fault of the Darcy in this version, played by David Rintoul. His is a one-note performance: cold. Seriously I don't think this guy so much as raises an eyebrow throughout the whole performance, and his proposal scene is one of the least convincing I've ever seen. The only commendation I will give him is that he looks the part admirably: tall dark and handsome in the extreme.

Now as to the minor characters. I feel like they're much more well-rounded than they are in the '95 classic, but at the same time much of the humor is removed in this process. The Bennett girls do look closer to their actual ages in the book, which I greatly appreciate, and Mrs. Bennett feels like a real person without being absurd. My main problem with the Bennetts in this is how much they deflate Mr. Bennett into a gruff chauvinist and a tyrant. All his mirth and wit seem to be removed, and thus he loses all sympathy in the eyes of the audience.

Outside the Bennet family, I don't feel like the minor parts were characterized as well because they has so little screen time. Sir William Lucas, the Bingley sisters, Charlotte, Mr. Wickham, and Mr. Gardener all seem to be there in name only, with no very distinguishing characteristics, which is sad because they add wonderful color to the narrative in the book.

I will, however, give this version points for two minor, non-Bennett characters. Mrs. Gardener gets credit first for being portrayed much more as as a confidant to Lizzie, wise and sagacious but lacking the streak or wry humor that makes her tease Lizzie about Darcy in her letter. So I actually still prefer the Mrs. Gardener from the '95 version, but I deeply appreciated the expanded role she was given in this one. The next role that I give them credit for is the ever-difficult Mr. Collins. This Collins is, to quote Blackadder, is "As thick as clotted cream that's been left out by some clot until the clots are so clotted that they couldn't be un-clotted with an electric de-clotter," which is just what we want in the character. At the same time, however, he doesn't seem as slimy or sniveling as he was in both the '95 miniseries and to a certain extent in the '05 theatrical release. This Collins is in awe of Lady Catherine without sucking up to her, which is how I've always pictured him.

One thing I give this version a lot of credit for incorporating is some of Austen's memorable narrative voice, much of which gets put into voice-overs by Lizzie and into the mouths of other characters by way of needed plot exposition. When you're dealing with an adaptation of one of the most quotable authors in the English language, it's important to pay homage to her memorable voice. Still, however, many of the best lines of the book remain omitted, including some of the best Lizzie/Darcy banter.

Then, of course, I will have to criticize this version for cutting the ending short, but since all the adaptations do that, I can hardly blame them any more than the others. I actually will express my satisfaction that they included a scene where the Bennetts invited Bingley and Darcy over for a party, and Lizzie tries in vain all evening to speak to Mr. Darcy. That scene does an excellent job at making us feel her frustration at not being able to express her thanks to Mr. Darcy . I also give this version credit for showing Mrs. Bennett's reaction to the news of Lizzie's engagement, which no other version to my knowledge shows, and which was always a favorite of mine from the book. Still, that is the final scene of the film, and its abrupt ending leaves viewers dazed and confused at the lack of a denouement as the credits roll.

"Did you admire me for my impertinence?" Lizzie asks Mr. Darcy

So how does this adaptation fare compared to the others? Well, it's leaps and bounds above the 1940 debacle with Laurence Olivier--it breaks my heart to speak against my ultimate Hollywood crush--and Greer Garson. Although it lacks the emotional depth and humor of both the 1995 and 2005 versions, it still a very good adaptation, sticking to the book nearly as well as the 1995 masterpiece. Still, because the acting is so wooden and the characters so miscast in many cases, it is not one I can watch very often with the same pleasure as the '95. At the same time, however,  it certainly does not inspire homicidal thoughts in me the same way truly bad adaptations do. So in conclusion, it's a credible and effort but not stellar work.

"Pride and Prejudice" (1995)

**This article was contributed by Cinema Muse in response to the review of the 1995 BBC miniseries "Pride & Prejudice" posted earlier this week.**

Those of you who are regular readers of my blog Seeing Sepia will remember that this adaptation made #1 on my list of Top 10 Most Faithful Movie Adaptations from Novels of All Time. I did not give that award out lightly as a film buff and lover of classic literature. Of course I realize it's not perfect, since no adaptation can be, but I still don't think some of the charges Publius has made against it are entirely fair. Please bear in mind that he esteems it almost as much as I do, and he should by no means be lampooned for daring to find fault with it. It is not my intention to question his right to find fault with it, as indeed he is correct in saying that is overall stellar quality gives us license to concentrate on the minutiae. In that spirit, therefore, I mount my defense.

British-American actress Jennifer Ehle handles the complex character of Elizabeth Bennett with just the right amount of sweetness and cynicism.

I will start with his slight objection to Jennifer Ehle's portrayal of Elizabeth. In it he says that Elizabeth's cynical streak had been softened somewhat, but I don't think that's so. I think she gives plenty of looks in the film that show just how weary she is of hypocrisy and injustice, especially when Lydia's elopement comes up. Consider during that episode when she hears that Lady Lucas has given assistance several times: "Assistance is impossible and condolence insufferable! Let her triumph over us at a distance and be satisfied!" I think that's about as cynical as you can get. Also, you don't want Lizzie's cynicism to be too prominent, lets she lose the mirth for which we love her.

Publius also claims that because the production is shot so much from Elizabeth's perspective, all the other characters seem one-dimensional. I will grant him that in part. Many of the characters do seem one-dimensional, but I would argue that Mr. Darcy does not suffer from this problem nor does Mr. Bennett to a certain degree.

I actually like that we get to see the characters from Lizzie's perspective for the most part. It means that our reactions coincide more with her own. After all, if we don't agree with her condemnation of Darcy in the beginning, we would lose sympathy with her subsequent treatment of him. I think experiencing the narrative largely through Lizzie's eyes gives us a softer view of Mr. Bennett, and a harder one on just about everyone else, Jane notwithstanding. Mr. Darcy, of course, averts this problem partially because we have the few scenes from his POV that reveal his true affection for Elizabeth. Still, however, we are given little hint that his appearance of  haughtiness is partially due to shyness apart from a few instances of him being tongue-tied in Lizzie's presence, which could be easily attributed simply to his being in love. Those scenes, however, combined with my foreknowledge of shyness being the novel's partial explanation of Darcy's actions were enough to produce that impression on me. At the same time, however, it's subtle enough that the nuance will still be lost on Elizabeth, which makes her assumption of pride more plausible.

I also know that the reason that some of the characters aren't as well-rounded as they should be is because the filmmakers wanted to make sure that the humor of their actions still came across, and I feel that this adaptation preserves the humor better than any other version of P&P. For those of you who haven't read it the book, it is laugh-out-loud funny, and this adaptation is the only one in which I find myself laughing at the same scenes and lines as I did in the book. That is a very high compliment indeed. Unfortunately this also means that the film short-changes some of the deeper aspects of these characters, especially Mrs. Bennett and Mr. Collins. I can excuse this, however, on the grounds that even though Jane Austen is renowned for well-drawn, rounded characters, her primary intent with them was to provide humor, and thus it is more important that they fulfill that function than that they appear well-rounded at the expense of the humor. It's sad that it has to be that way, but as Publius pointed out, even in a 6-hour miniseries, there simply isn't time to flesh out all the characters.

One thing that Publius got spot-on was that this version like all the others before it doesn't seem to know what to do with Mr. Collins. Of course I think this version's Collins is the funniest one of the bunch, but he's way too slimy and not quite dense enough to fit the character that Austen wrote. In fact he's so transparently a grasping sycophant that it's impossible to believe that Charlotte can even have a modicum of contentment with him. And speaking of Charlotte, she's a character that isn't nearly explained well enough so that she comes off mercenary. This version shows that she's certainly as smart as Lizzie and doesn't have the looks to catch a man, but her lack of fortune and spinster status are never alluded to, and thus leave the audience as shocked as Lizzie when the engagement is announced.

As to Publius' claim that the cinematography lacked panache, I think first off that it exceeds all the previous BBC cinematography I've seen--but not subsequent--and secondly that it was made for TV not theaters, which means both budget and expectations were decidedly lower. I can easily excuse it because it so far above the home-video quality of the BBC Austen adaptations of the '70s and '80s as to be a positive breath of fresh air in comparision.

Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth and Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy perform the "up a double and back" figure from the English Country Dance "Mr. Bevridge's  Maggot," in a slowed tempo that emphasizes the stateliness and formality of their relationship and Mr. Darcy's personality.

Of the many good points that Publius spoke of, moreover, he failed to mention two of my favorites, namely the score and the dancing. The score is a mixture of period classical pieces, English Country Dance tunes, and original compositions by Carl Davies including the famous theme song. One thing I know that Publius and I both appreciate is how much of the music heard comes from Mozart. For example, Lizzie sings an aria from The Marriage of Figaro when she's at Pemberley, and the musical piece played as everyone arrives for the Netherfield Ball is from the wedding scene in that opera. In addition Mrs. Hurst plays another Mozart piano piece during the ballroom scene, and Lizzie plays another while she's at Rosings Park. This is particularly appropriate because Figaro and P&P are often compared to each other in terms of sparkling wit and social commentary. As for the dancing, I can say being an English Country Dancer myself that the dances are well-executed and are real Playford English Country Dances that existed at the time instead of being something the filmmakers created. That being said, many English Country Dance aficionados have pointed out that the dances chosen in the film were hopelessly outdated by the time of  P&P, but I think that's a minor point because it's still the same style of dance. It's not like the replaced it with the polka or the electric slide.

So yes, this film/miniseries does have some faults. Are they bad enough for me to retract the title of best novel-to-film adaptation ever? No. Until someone shows me one that captures all the events and the spirit of the novel as well as this one, I will still maintain that it is the most accurate I've ever seen.

Dorothy Sayers: Have His Carcase

Welcome to part two of four in my Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane series. When we last left the most attractive man in fiction, he had just saved the woman he loved from the gallows, but got no closer to winning her affections. After writing a few other Lord Peter books which did not feature Harriet, author Dorothy Sayers picks up her story again with the novel Have His Carcase (That last word is the British spelling of the word "carcass").

Two years after she was exonerated of the charge of murder, Harriet Vane is still trying to create a normal life for herself. The publicity from her murder trial has made her book sales skyrocket, but her personal life remains unsettled. Lord Peter Wimsey continues his attentions to her, but Harriet still cannot decide what to do about him. She will not accept his proposals, but at the same time she does not have the willpower to send him away altogether.

In order to dodge her noble suitor, Harriet decides to go on a walking tour of England. This goes well until  one day she comes across a body with its throat cut lying on a remote beach. Since the tide is coming in quickly, and Harriet knows it will probably be impossible to get the police to the scene before it gets covered in water, she takes pictures of grisly deed, then runs for help.

To all the world this death looks like a suicide--why else would a man with a full beard be in possession of a razor with which to cut his throat? And there is no discernible evidence of another person having been at the crime scene. In Harriet's mind, however, there are enough incongruous elements to make her suspect murder. Being a shrewd businesswoman and generally wary of the press, she calls in the media in order both to garner publicity for her upcoming mystery novel and to deflect suspicion away from herself, since her character has already been darkened.

Unfortunately--in her view, anyway--all that press immediately attracts the attention of Lord Peter Wimsey, who could no more resist an opportunity to solve a murder and court his great flame than a cat could resist a ball of catnip. With the impetuous Lord Peter proposing to her every five minutes, Harriet nevertheless set out with him to solve a case that only seems to get more baffling the further she and Peter go.

The murder victim turns out to be a Russian dancer named Paul Alexis who worked at a local resort. Far from having any reason to want to kill himself, however, Paul Alexis had been about to marry a rich widow and enjoy the life of ease and luxury that he'd always wanted. Of course the fact that he was about to come into a large some of money means that there should be a motive for murder. When the widow's son shows up the next day with very unkind things to say about Paul Alexis, Peter and Harriet get an inkling that this man would be the likeliest candidate for their murderer. The only problem is that the son has an airtight alibi for the time of the murder. In addition Harriet ran into a few other suspicious characters on the road to the beach immediately after the murder, none of which have been traced yet. So Lord Peter and Harriet have their work cut out for them in solving this caper.

In the meantime the two of them indulge in some wonderful flirtation and witty banter, which only gets interrupted at one point when Lord Peter reminds Harriet to be careful what she says because even though her heart isn't involved, his is, and she thus has the capacity to hurt him much more deeply than he could ever hurt her. In Have His Carcase we get a glimpse of both what a good team Lord Peter and Harriet of them make at crime-solving, and of how much fun they can have together when Harriet lets her guard down. By the end of the book, however, it becomes clear that Harriet still has a lot of issues to work out and is not comfortable with the idea of a romantic relationship.

I must now admit that this is my least favorite of the four books in this series because it lacks the depth that the others have and instead tries to concentrate more on the murder itself. This is not to say that the murder in itself isn't any good. On the contrary, it's quite ingenious and baffling, and it only loses my interest at the part where Lord Peter and Harriet try to solve a cipher, a passage which is both overly long and impossible to follow. So the murder does well, and the banter between Lord Peter and Harriet is delightful, but I still cannot excuse the absence of the introspection that elevates the other books beyond the pack of common murder mysteries. Fortunately the next book in the series more than makes up for this one's weakness.

Still, however, this book is delightful and well worth reading. A good entry to the Wimsey/Vane series, even if it's not as strong as the others.

Dorothy Sayers: Strong Poison

**This guest post was contributed by The Supreme Arbitress of Taste, who reviews films of Golden Age Hollywood and movie adaptations of classical literature at her blog, Seeing Sepia.**

Welcome to the first of a 4-part series on the Lord Peter and Harriet Vane Mysteries by Dorothy L. Sayers!  Those of you familiar with my article My Top 10 Fictional Boyfriends of Page and Screen know that Lord Peter Wimsey was my unequivocal choice for the most attractive fictional man of all time. Apparently my description piqued Publius' (Perhaps I should say Publii if I want to decline the Latin noun correctly) curiosity to the point that he asked me to review some Lord Peter books for the sake of public edification. Of course I was only too happy to oblige him, but before I get on to the book review, I would like to say a few words about Dorothy L. Sayers.

Sayers was one of the first women to be awarded a degree from Oxford University, and before she became famous as a mystery writer, she developed a reputation as a Christian theologian. She was also the only female member of the Inklings group that included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. During the 1920s she took her first foray into fiction when she published Whose Body? a murder mystery starring the socialite sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, younger son of the 15th Duke of Denver. Needless to say, the book was popular enough to launch a whole series of Lord Peter novels and short stories over the next twenty years, making Sayers second only to Agatha Christie in popularity for British detective fiction. Perhaps the reason that Sayers was so successful was that she didn't try to copy Christie's style of labyrinthine plots and mile-long lists of suspects. Instead Sayers relied on compelling and realistic characters, an area in which Christie with all her brilliance could not come close to equaling Sayers. 

Like most successful detective novelist, Sayers had a plan to "kill off" her famous detective, not by poison or a bullet, but rather by having him marry, settle down, and live happily ever after. Thus in 1930 she introduced us to Lord Peter's future bride Harriet Vane in the book Strong Poison. Harriet was a thinly veiled portrait of Sayers herself: an Oxford grad and mystery writer who was haunted by an ill-advised love affair, and because of this Sayers injects a depth of feeling and insight into that character that exceeds her already-high standards.

In what I think is one of the best opening in detective fiction, Sayers sets the scene for the murder trial of Harriet Vane:

"There were crimson roses on the bench; they looked like splashes of blood.

"The judge was an old man, so old that he seemed to have outlived time and change and death."

Miss Vane has been accused of murdering her former lover Phillip Boyes, but the case against her is purely circumstantial. Unfortunately public opinion is almost uniformly prejudiced against her because she is a "loose woman" who had the gall to refuse her lover's offer of marriage. Her reasoning makes more sense, however, when we learn that Boyes had hounded her for over a year about her living with him, claiming that he was against marriage on principle and that co-habitation was the only way they could be together. Then after Harriet had given up all her friends, relatives, and moral scruples for Boyes' sake and had been living with him for quite some time, he had the effrontery to ask her to marry him, at which point she broke off the relationship entirely, saying, "I didn't like having matrimony offered as a bad-conduct prize." I for one entirely agree with Harriet's decision because what Phillip Boyes did to her was manipulative and boarding on the mentally abusive. To hound someone into disgracing themselves like that and then tell them that it was all for nothing is the sign of a sick mind. Unfortunately the only person who seems to agree with that assessment is Lord Peter Wimsey, who has fallen in love with the intelligent and  defendant.

With Harriet's character thus blackened by her past actions, it looks as if she will hang for sure until a lone juror ruins the trial by refusing to go along with the guilty verdict. Lord Peter, therefore, has only one month to exonerate Harriet before the re-trial.

There are many brilliant parts to this novel, but many people have made the case for the first few chapters--the trial scene--being the best. Of course it's rather ingenious to start a mystery story with a summation of the case against the prime suspect, and my lawyer father says that it's the best portrayal of a hostile courtroom he's ever seen in print, even better, he says, than Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution . And this is all contrasted to Lord Peter's comments to his friends during the trial, his firm conviction that Harriet is innocent. Of course I have no wish to deny that the scene is wonderfully written, but I feel that there are some equally good moments later on.

My favorite parts of this book are the encounter with Blindfold Bill, now an Evangelical minister, and Miss Climpson's fake seance. Even though Miss Climpson is extremely moral and honest, she pretends to be a psychic medium in order to obtain a copy of a will that proves someone besides Harriet had a motive for killing Phillip Boyes. What's delightful about this scene is that is conveyed in the form of letters from Miss Climpson to Lord Peter in which her tone is half-child-like giddiness at having an adventure and half-apologetic for the subterfuge to which she must stoop. As for the Blindfold Bill scene, I just appreciate how lovingly Sayers draws a character that in another author's hand would be a  stereotypical religious fanatic and possibly a hypocrite. Instead Bill is extremely likable as he now uses his safe-breaking powers for good and not evil, helping investigators to break into safes in order to retrieve evidence. Of course the whole scene is still hysterically funny because the best lock-picker in Europe is a family man and says "By God's grace," whenever referring to the past events of his life, but it doesn't feel cruel or anti-religious.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of the book, however, is the beginning of Lord Peter's courtship with Harriet Vane--if you can call it that at this point since Harriet is completely non-receptive to Peter's advances because of the extreme trauma she's going through. I really appreciate how realistically Sayers portrays a woman who has been badly hurt by men. We see her dejection, her bitterness, her self-loathing, reticence for any further commitment, and none of these things conveniently vanish for the sake of advancing the plot

Of course compounding Harriet's issues is Lord Peter's awkwardness in dealing with her. A sane, normal person would never speak of love to someone who is both emotionally bruised and in dire peril as a result of it. We can assume that Lord Peter knows this, but he gets so flustered when he's around Harriet that he just kind of blurts it out without thinking. Despite his clumsiness, however, I really admire the reasons for which Lord Peter falls in love with Harriet. Lord Peter is looking for a true partner and companion, and he sees qualities in Harriet like deep feeling and and intelligent, analytical mind--to say nothing of her interest in crime--that complement his own. I also appreciate that he doesn't judge her for the mistakes that she made in the past. We all make big mistakes, after all, but most of ours aren't as public as Harriet's. Also, although it's never stated, Harriet holds the additional allure of being a damsel in distress whom Lord Peter can rescue from the gallows, which certainly appeals to his romantic nature. If Lord Peter wants to win his lady fair, however, it's going to be a long journey because by the end of the novel, he has made absolutely no progress in her affections.

So there's a lot of reasons why you should read this book, even if you're not into mysteries generally, because it has so much more to offer than just a baffling case to solve. Obviously that dimension of the story holds up well, but the book has true merit in terms of characters, comedy, and underlying social issues. This--the whole series, in fact--is one of those rare genre novels that transcends the bounds of its categorization and moves into the realm of true literature.

** This was a guest post by the Supreme Arbitress of Taste. The Supreme Arbitress is the second-generation heir to the title, which was first held by her grandmother, a fashionista and interior decorator, and then by her mother, the most cultured woman in the world. The Supreme Arbitress is a San Francisco native with a degree in English from Seattle Pacific University. When she's not composing the next great American novel, she writes articles for her blog Seeing Sepia, which reviews the films of Golden Age Hollywood and film adaptations of classic literature. In her spare time, she enjoys knitting, dancing, and long walks in the country.

Connie Willis: To Say Nothing of the Dog

**This guest post was contributed by The Supreme Arbitress of Taste, whose blog Seeing Sepia is one of my favorite resources for reviews of classic movies from Golden Age Hollywood, as well as reviews of film adaptations for classical literature.  Check out her blog, and enjoy this review.**

Connie Willis has long been acknowledged by literary critics as one of the premier writers in the science fiction genre, but her taste--while excellent and always worth reading--is not mainstream enough to make her a popular favorite. She is not sci-fi enough for typical readers in that audience nor can her books really be classified as regular fiction and thus draw on that considerable demographic for support. Thus despite wining multiple Hugo and Nebula Awards, Ms. Willis remains generally unknown even to dedicated bibliophiles who would appreciate her genius the most.

Out of her impressive oeuvre, the three novels that really stand out to me are Doomsday Book (1992), Bellwether (1996), and To Say Nothing of the Dog (1997), the last of these being my personal favorite and the subject of today's review. Any lover of 19th and Early 20th Century fiction will be delighted by the endless stream of thoughtful literary references in this book, and while the novel is mostly a fun romp through the romantic comedy genre, Willis still manages to add depth and urgency to the narrative, elevating it far beyond typical literary homages like Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books. Since this book ranks easily as one of my favorite books of all time and is fairly obscure despite winning Hugo and Locus Awards, I will necessarily be taking a lot of print to describe its considerable merits.

Perhaps one of the best features of the story is the witty, erstwhile narration by the protagonist Ned Henry. Ned is a time-traveler/historian at the Oxford University in the year 2057, when the whole program has been hijacked by their stentorian patron Lady Shrapnel for her project to rebuild Coventry Cathedral. With her mantra that "God is in the details," Lady Shrapnel has every historian in Oxford racing across the centuries checking to make sure every stone in the cathedral is laid exactly as it was before the Nazis destroyed it in the Blitz, but the most important piece of the restoration remains unaccounted for: the Bishop's Bird Stump. While to most people the Bird Stump would appear to be a hideously chintzy piece of Victorian crockery, viewing it changed the life of one of Lady Shrapnel's ancestors, and thus she is determined to have it at costs.

This, however, translates into no rest and little-to-no sleep for Ned as he hunts in vain for the Bishop's Bird Stump with Lady Shrapnel breathing down his neck. The story opens with Ned and his team searching the burned-out ruins of the original cathedral just after it was bombed in 1940. As the chapter progresses, an inappropriately sentimental comment from his partner Carruthers convinces Ned that the man is suffering from time-lag, a condition brought on from making too many trips to the past in a short period of time. The symptoms this malady are maudlin sentimentality, hallucinations, extreme fatigue, and impaired vision and hearing. By the end of the chapter, though, it's clear that Ned is the one suffering from time-lag, and Carruthers hauls him off to the infirmary.

Most of the humor in this style of narration comes in the disconnect between what Ned sees while time-lagged and what is actually happening along with the tangential manner of Ned's thoughts. Ms. Willis thus makes the first quarter of the book laugh-out-loud funny by using the time-lag device to establish the tone during the exposition, but her combination of Murphy's-law-induced irony, moments of biting satire on bureaucratic efficiency and the overabundance of stupid people in the world in addition to madcap situations inspired by Victorian plays like Charley's Aunt and The Importance of Being Ernest sustains the high level of comedic excellence through the rest of the book.

Back in the plot: despite being ill, Ned has no time to get the rest he needs because fellow historian Verity Kindle might have accidentally caused a chain reaction that could destroy the space-time continuum. What horrible crime did she commit? She pulled a drowning cat out of the Thames and brought it back to the 21st century from the Victorian Era. According to their temporal theory, live creatures cannot be brought back from the past because they are significant objects and their absence would rip apart the fabric of the universe. So while the research department tries to figure out what caused this anomaly, Ned and Verity must bring the cat back to the Victorian Era and attempt to return things to normal before everything is irrevocably altered. And in his time-lagged state, Ned thinks Verity the most beautiful women he's ever seen, an effect that remains even when he is in his right mind.

On his way to bring the cat home--a cat which, by the way, in Ned's time-lagged state he doesn't even realize he has--to its owner at Munching's End, Ned finds himself punting down the Thames with an eccentric Oxford don who quotes Latin and is obsessed with fish, a love-struck undergrad named Terrence who incessantly quotes Tennyson and Shakespeare, and Terrance's bulldog Cyril. Thus Ned realizes that he has Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) just like Jerome K. Jerome's comic Victorian memoir/travel book.

As Ned and Verity desperately try to set things right in the Victorian Era, they find themselves in the dilemma of of trying to figure out how to get the right people to the right places at the right time so that their destinies can be fulfilled, which takes a work of detection akin to what Verity recognizes in a mystery plot. Since her area of expertise is the 1930s, moreover, she is extremely knowledgeable about the mystery genre and goes on at length about the novels of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, wondering what Hercule Poirot or Lord Peter Wimsey would do in these situations. She also finds herself irresistibly attracted to Ned because his boating costume and mustache remind her of the dashing Lord Peter--for which I can hardly blame the poor girl because Lord Peter, especially when he is courting Harriet Vane, is undoubtedly one of the most delightful characters ever written. Willis actually borrows two famous scenes from Lord Peter mysteries in this book: the seance scene from Strong Poison, and a role-reversal of the scene from Gaudy Night where an exhausted Lord Peter falls asleep in a boat on the Thames while Harriet Vane contemplates his slumbering countenance. Willis also treats us to a delightful scene in 1930s Oxford where two old ladies are gossiping about the plot of of Agatha Christie's famous mystery The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

While this all makes for superb comedy, what elevates the narrative is the contemplation of free will and determinism that occurs as a result of Verity bringing the cat through to the 21st century, which according to temporal theory would be impossible because significant and living objects should not get past the safety parameters on their time machine. The historians and technicians must then ask themselves if one person can really destroy history or if there are forces beyond our contemplation that move things regardless of our consent. This idea is then then echoed in the Victorian Era with the conflict between Professor Peddick and his rival Professor Overforce. Peddick is convinced that history is determined by the actions of great men like Caesar and Napoleon while Overforce is equally sure that history is controlled by social forces beyond any individual's control. But Ned wonders if there can be a Both-And answer to the question (something similar to the chaos theory), and you'll have to read the book yourself to see what he concludes.

I will end by saying that if, after reading this book, you find that you like the concept of the Oxford Time Travel Department, consider reading the other books Willis wrote with them: Doomsday Book in which a historian accidentally gets stuck in the Black Plague, and her newest novel Blackout about the Second World War. Be warned, however: these books are not laugh-out-loud funny the way To Say Nothing of the Dog is because they deal with much more serious subjects, but they are both handled beautifully by Connie Willis, who is equally adept at tragedy and comedy.

** This was a guest post by the Supreme Arbitress of Taste. The Supreme Arbitress is the second-generation heir to the title, which was first held by her grandmother, a fashionista and interior decorator, and then by her mother, the most cultured woman in the world. The Supreme Arbitress is a San Francisco native with a degree in English from Seattle Pacific University. When she's not composing the next great American novel, she writes articles for her blog Seeing Sepia, which reviews the films of Golden Age Hollywood and film adaptations of classic literature. In her spare time, she enjoys knitting, dancing, and long walks.