6 adaptations of popular fairy tales that you hardly heard of

1. Visa

The Wiz

• USA, 1978.
• Musical, fantasy, adventure, family.
• Duration: 134 minutes.
• IMDb: 5.5.

Dorothy, a simple kindergarten teacher, lives in the "black" quarter of New York. One winter, a blizzard takes her to a strange country. To return home, the girl needs the help of the sorcerer Visa. He lives in the Emerald City, where the yellow brick road leads. On the way to the magician, the heroine meets friends - the Scarecrow, the Iron Man and the Cowardly Lion.

The work of Sidney Lumet is based on the Broadway film of the same name. musical, which, in turn, is based on the well-known fairy tale "The Wise Man of Oz". Through the efforts of the director, the naive original was transformed into a rather gloomy, but in a good way crazy and original spectacle.

So, the yellow brick road in the film looks like a freeway, and the Emerald City looks like a typical American metropolis with skyscrapers. Well, Dorothy from a little girl has become a pretty adult girl.

But the main innovation is that absolutely all the roles in the film are played by black actors, and the most famous of them, of course, is Michael Jackson as the Scarecrow. And the jazz legend Lena Horn sang for the fairy Glinda.

This puts Visa in the so-called blackploitation genre, a 1970s exploitation film aimed at a black audience. Whatever the case, this musical can be a little boring to watch these days. Despite the fact that the musical numbers themselves sound great, they are delivered, to put it mildly, not very dynamically and do not capture at all.

That's probably why you're unlikely to find The Visa on Sidney Lumet's best movie lists. But still, as an artifact of the era and at the same time a collection of chic songs, the picture is of great interest.

2. Cinderella

Cinderfella

• USA, 1960.
• Musical, fantasy, melodrama, comedy, family.
• Duration: 91 minutes.
• IMDb: 6.0.

After the death of his father, a boy named Cinderella is left to live with his arrogant stepmother and her two nasty sons, Maximilian and Rupert. Gradually, a good hero becomes a servant in his own estate.

Worried that their fortune is dwindling every day, the stepmother decides to throw a ball in honor of the visiting princess, who she hopes will marry Rupert and put things right for them. But with the help of a magical godfather, Cinderella is going to get ahead of her brother and charm the girl.

«Cinderellahas been filmed countless times. And some of the older adaptations, if the directors made them today, would definitely become a hot topic of discussion. For example, the 1997 version, in which all the key roles were played by black performers.

In the comedy of 1960, the archetypal plot was turned on its head: female and male characters switched roles. The famous comedian Jerry Lewis portrayed the male version of Cinderella - Cinderella's boyfriend. The prince was made a princess, the evil half-sisters became half-brothers, and instead of the fairy godmother, the life of the hero was established, respectively, by the godfather.

3. Hansel and Gretel

Hansel and Gretel

• USA, 1983.
• Short film, fantasy.
• Duration: 45 minutes.
• IMDb: 6.2.

Brother and sister - Hansel and Gretel - accidentally fall into the hut of an evil cannibal sorcerer. Their kind and cute toys, at the whim of the wizard, turn into bloodthirsty monsters and try to catch the children. But the heroes will be helped by faith in goodness and karate skills.

Grim storyteller Tim Burton everyone knows from works like Sleepy Hollow or Edward Scissorhands. But not every devoted fan will remember that at the dawn of his career, the director directed Hansel and Gretel specifically for the Japanese branch of Disney Channel.

And this is an incredibly strange sight even by Burton's standards: Japanese actors play in the film, robots flicker in the frame from time to time, and the main characters use martial arts against the sorcerer.

The film was shown only once halloween, after which they took it off the air and forgot about it for a long time. But in 2014, the tape was digitized and, to the delight of the fans and the dissatisfaction of Tim Burton himself, they put it on public display on the Internet.

After Hansel and Gretel, Burton made another television movie based on the famous fairy tale, Aladdin and His Magic Lamp. At the same time, not the last actors played in it - the star of "The Shining" Shelley Duvall and Leonard Nimoy, famous for the role of Spock.

The picture was also shown once and put on the shelf. The tape was considered lost for a long time, so it could not even be found on the IMDb aggregator. She appeared there only after the release of "Lamp" on DVD.

4. In the company of wolves

The Company of Wolves

• UK, 1984
• Horror, fantasy, drama.
• Duration: 95 minutes.
• IMDb: 6.7.

A young girl dreams that she lives in a remote village, surrounded on all sides by a dense forest. After the death of her sister, she often visits her grandmother, listens to her instructive stories and one day receives a red hooded cloak from her as a gift.

Neil Jordan's film Interview with the Vampire is based on the stories of 20th-century English writer Angela Carter. She created Gothic works in the genre of magical realism, rewriting fairy tales familiar to everyone since childhood.

And "In the company of wolves" the story about Little Red Riding Hood, passed through the filter, is easily recognizable psychoanalytic theories. The fairy tale that one does not need to wander through the forest alone turns into a parable about the growing up and rebirth of a girl into a woman.

5. The Secret Adventures of Tom Tamba

The Secret Adventures of Tom Thumb

• UK, 1993
• Fantasy, adventure.
• Duration: 60 minutes.
• IMDb: 7.3.

One laboratory is secretly engaged in genetic research and experiments. As a result of one of them, a tiny child no larger than a finger is born to a married couple of normal growth. Parents love the boy and so, but one day agents come to them and take the baby back to the laboratory, where other victims of unsuccessful genetic experiments live.

A futuristic version of "Thumbboy" (in fact, in the original the character's name is just Tom Thumb) was released in Britain over the Christmas holidays, after which the BBC channel was inundated with complaints. The audience can be understood: many of them turned on their children a sweet, as they thought, fairy tale, which in fact turned out to be a surreal fantasy, reminiscent of the works David Lynch.

6. Alice

Neco z Alenky

• Czechoslovakia, Switzerland, Great Britain, Germany, 1987.
• Fantasy, thriller.
• Duration: 86 minutes.
• IMDb: 7.5.

The girl Alyonka was playing at home when, in front of her eyes, the stuffed rabbit came to life and disappeared into the table drawer. Looking there, the girl finds the whole world. She intrudes there, trying to keep up with the rabbit in the hope that he will explain what is happening.

Claustrophobic versionAlice in Wonderland» Czech director Jan Svankmajer should not be shown to children. Yes, and adults should first assess the strength of their nerves and prepare for one of the darkest film experiments of their lives.

In this film, the heroine of the fairy tale by Lewis Carroll is called in the Slavic manner. True, in the international and Russian versions, the name of the film was still adapted as "Alice" - despite the fact that in the original it bears the name "Something from Alyonka".

The action of the tape takes place in closed and unpleasant spaces. Unlike most of Carroll's adaptations, Shvankmayer's puppet world is by no means friendly, but very gloomy and scary. There's not even music!

The atmosphere of the original fairy tale itself is a little unsettling and surreal, and the director got rid of funny characters like the Cheshire Cat and focused on the darkest and most oppressive aspects stories.