some of the props in the 1984 thumbelina are absolutely fantastic and kind of hilarious
as well the 1984 from bellina is one that i watched because carrie fisher is in it
she plays thumbelina i don't really have any childhood connection to the
character i know a lot of people love thumbelina personally i could take or leave the character
but this version which was released as part of um fairy tale theater shelley devol's fairy tale
theater is really sweet and has made me want to go and check out other installments in the fairy tale
theater series it's not very long it's just shy of an hour directed by michael lindsay hogg and
well based on the story by hans christian anderson with the screenplay by mary edith
verrell of course the fabulous harry fisher thumbelina as well as william cat as flower prince
burgess meredith as mr mull and cotter farrell is thumbelina's mother donovan scott who is
one of the greatest film santas ever and also plays her toad the narrative follows a pretty
standard setup for thumbelina thumblina is born out of a flower and she gets stolen by a toad
with the intention of making thumbelina marry her toad son thumbelina tries to get back to
her mother and in doing so she encounters a lot of different woodland creatures who help her on
her journey to try and get back to her mother and get as far away from that toad as possible
the narrative itself is pretty sweet but for me what works the most with this
is the set designs the props the makeup the costumes now it looks cheap
it really looks cheap but there's something really cute and humbling about that i don't know what the
budget was for this i have absolutely no idea but everything looks the set designs look cheap
and it works really well and it's something that i find so fun and it just made me laugh there
there's some prop the prop the matchbox this big matchbox i thought was adorable and then
a few scenes down the line we see um this bird now thumbelina is obviously the size of a thumb
or is it a thumb nail i can't remember but she's tiny so next to this bird this bird
is huge and there's just this carrie fisher standing next to this massive
it's a prop could you call it a prop if it's massive and can't be carried
certainly uh not furniture this giant bird and it just looked so funny and so corny but really quite
magical and fun and creative and that this represents the magic of filmmaking in its
most simple form um you could certainly see this kind of thing on stage the props and the
set designs are all kind of not height value put it that way and it works so well there's
a particular scene where carrie carrie fisher is on a lily pad and she nearly falls into the water
and it's just it's it's silly crazy good fun i apologize if you can hear some banging i
think my neighbors are putting up shelves or something i hope that's what they're doing it's
it's fun in terms of it being shot um there are some camera angles i thought were a bit
awkward and not the best they could have been but for the most part i found it really good fun
carrie fisher is obviously fantastic she sings at one point which is beautiful
really great performance very childlike um narrative that i think everybody would enjoy
it's not the most well known or most beloved version of thumbelina and i don't think it
ever will be but personally it's my favorite version now because it's it's fantastic but
it's corny and it's cheesy and it just made me laugh even when it wasn't meant to be that funny
and obviously i love carrie fisher so for me she was just absolutely perfect it is on youtube
i don't know i don't believe it's available um anywhere officially but if you get a chance to
watch it i definitely recommend you do it's less than an hour and i think you'll really
enjoy it it's silly good fun don't take it seriously and i think you'll really like it