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The Star Prince
Jan. 17th, 2021 09:28 pmMadeline Brandeis’ The Star Prince is a trip. I feel like I say this about a lot of silent films, or at least think it, but to be fair many of them really ARE, you watch them and you are in fact transported to a strange new world.
However, few movies are quite as out there as The Star Prince, a fairy tale that takes place in a world entirely populated by child actors and animals. (Brandeis founded The Little Players' Film Co, which specialized in movies with all-child casts.) The animals spend a lot of time gamboling - there is a LENGTHY sequence involving two black bear cubs, who as far as I can tell have no relevance to the plot? I enjoy gamboling bear cubs as much as anyone but you’d think the movie would at least pretend they were… transformed knights, or something.
The story of the Star Prince is that he is a prince who came to earth one night on a falling star… except actually he is the child of a beggar woman (played, like all the adults in this movie, by a child), which he discovers only after throwing stones at her because he’s just so full of himself on account of the whole Star Prince thing. He is APPALLED to discover that he is the child of this unkempt creature, and rejects her scornfully, only to be punished with a fairy’s curse that makes him an ugly beggar himself.
The curse is partially lifted when he frees a squirrel (which appears to be stop motion animated taxidermy?), so he is a beautiful beggar rather than an ugly beggar. And that is the point at which he meets… the princess! They fall in love!
But ALAS, there is another suitor for the princess’s hand. He is an Evil Dwarf. (The Evil Dwarf is significantly taller than several of the other characters, including the princess.) He and his Evil Witch ally kidnap the Star Prince and imprison him in a cave, which has a secret magic door that leads directly to the princess’s room, so the Evil Dwarf and the Evil Witch have to summon their imps and send them down the princess’s chimney to kidnap the Star Prince again.
At which point they send him off into the forest to find a hidden bag of gold, which he does with the aid of his stop motion taxidermied squirrel friend… Etc. etc., the princess is almost forced to marry the Evil Dwarf, who towers over the clergyman performing the princess, but the Star Prince shows up just in time and the princess’s fairy godmother proclaims him the true prince and transforms the Evil Dwarf into a pig. The Star Prince’s beggar mother shows up to forgive him! The Star Prince and the Princess are married! The black bears never show up again.
However, few movies are quite as out there as The Star Prince, a fairy tale that takes place in a world entirely populated by child actors and animals. (Brandeis founded The Little Players' Film Co, which specialized in movies with all-child casts.) The animals spend a lot of time gamboling - there is a LENGTHY sequence involving two black bear cubs, who as far as I can tell have no relevance to the plot? I enjoy gamboling bear cubs as much as anyone but you’d think the movie would at least pretend they were… transformed knights, or something.
The story of the Star Prince is that he is a prince who came to earth one night on a falling star… except actually he is the child of a beggar woman (played, like all the adults in this movie, by a child), which he discovers only after throwing stones at her because he’s just so full of himself on account of the whole Star Prince thing. He is APPALLED to discover that he is the child of this unkempt creature, and rejects her scornfully, only to be punished with a fairy’s curse that makes him an ugly beggar himself.
The curse is partially lifted when he frees a squirrel (which appears to be stop motion animated taxidermy?), so he is a beautiful beggar rather than an ugly beggar. And that is the point at which he meets… the princess! They fall in love!
But ALAS, there is another suitor for the princess’s hand. He is an Evil Dwarf. (The Evil Dwarf is significantly taller than several of the other characters, including the princess.) He and his Evil Witch ally kidnap the Star Prince and imprison him in a cave, which has a secret magic door that leads directly to the princess’s room, so the Evil Dwarf and the Evil Witch have to summon their imps and send them down the princess’s chimney to kidnap the Star Prince again.
At which point they send him off into the forest to find a hidden bag of gold, which he does with the aid of his stop motion taxidermied squirrel friend… Etc. etc., the princess is almost forced to marry the Evil Dwarf, who towers over the clergyman performing the princess, but the Star Prince shows up just in time and the princess’s fairy godmother proclaims him the true prince and transforms the Evil Dwarf into a pig. The Star Prince’s beggar mother shows up to forgive him! The Star Prince and the Princess are married! The black bears never show up again.
