Almost Worthless: A Look at Very Cheap Cinema

Let me make this clear: I am doing this out of love and curiosity. I love discount stores and I'm curious about the DVDs they sell. Every time I go to a 99 cent store, bodega, drugstore, or supermarket, the movies are there. I've never seen anyone buy them, but they're always sitting in a display rack or near the cash register, waiting to be watched and shared. Like the grab bags offered at Dollar Tree stores, you don't quite know what you'll get (unless you're one of those cheaters who open the bag, look at it, AND THEN PUT IT BACK?! COME ON!). It's likely that most, if not all, discount DVDs are made up of public domain material: that is, there's no copyright. That's why there are lot of "classic cartoon collections" and "the best of" old movie stars. Not all public domain material is that recognizable, though. If you've ever watched Pee-wee's Playhouse for example (stay with me), the public domain animated shorts introduced by the King of Cartoons are obscure, often strange, sometimes foreign, and always interesting.

The first film I'll review is The Figurehead and Other Fairy Tales, published by EastWest Entertainment LLG. At first glance, this looks somewhat like a ripoff of Disney's The Little Mermaid. While the mermaid doesn't exactly look like Ariel and it might be a stretch to think that the blue-striped fish next to her is a copy of Flounder, her love interest definitely looks like Prince Eric. I say "love interest" instead of "prince" because according to the back cover, he's a soldier.

In fact, the back cover is what drew me to the DVD in the first place: the front cover may look like a Disney copy, but the back cover's synopsis is a little different: "A beautiful mermaid saves a wooden figurehead soldier from a watery fate in this touching classic from the golden era of stop-motion animation."

What is a "wooden figurehead soldier", anyway? Is he a toy soldier? I don't know. Maybe he's just a boring guy, like Disney's first few Handsome Princes.

However, there is that odd word "figurehead". It takes the film from being a potential Disney knock-off to being a potential Ayn Rand one.

The front cover also doesn't match the back cover's indication that it's a "golden age" stop motion film. I'm guessing that the golden age of stop motion was from the late 1950's to the early 1970's, when such classics as Davey and Goliath, Gumby, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and Santa Claus is Coming to Town were created. It sounds promising, so let's find out:

The end. That's it. It's like a super-abridged version of The Little Mermaid: one where she never even gets a chance at the man she loves. It's like someone read the first couple of paragraphs of the Hans Christian Andersen story, got to the part where the mermaid keeps a statue of the prince in her garden, and thought, "Well, that's enough for me."

On the other hand, The Figurehead does provide its own lessons. While the original version of The Little Mermaid is about the virtue of self-sacrifice, The Figurehead is about the vice of pride. Since the soldier was originally carved as saint statue, that's his identity. Of course, he's just a piece of wood carved by a drunken sculptor, but he either doesn't know that or denies the fact. And because he feels that only the heavens are worthy of his attention, his second chance at life under the sea is wasted. A lovely (not to mention topless) mermaid's caresses aren't enough for someone who believes he's a saint. And so he'll remain forever lonely at the bottom of the ocean, blind to the affections of a devoted mermaid and ignorant of the very God he claims to favor him.

Okay, then. That was depressing. On a more positive note, the film does feature some very interesting animation. People and objects curve in unlikely places, making everything look warped in a kind of Cabinet of Dr. Caligari way. The painted backgrounds and use of 2-D animation add to the surrealism, especially in the chaotic storm scene and in the transparent fish that follow the mermaid. The direction takes unpredictable turns as well. The shot that is entirely made up of the objects falling into the sea is a simple one (note the appearance of the sculptor's liquor bottle), but it conveys the bleak aftermath of the shipwreck without actually showing the ship. The animation matches the story. It's dark, warped, and tragic, but its haunting quality is what makes it great.

I have to say that The Figurehead and Other Fairy Tales isn't worth the dollar I spent on it. I am glad I saw the actual Figurehead short, but it is only about 7 and a half minutes long, which leaves 52 and a half extra minutes of Harryhausen versions of 6 other fairy tales. They have a certain old-timey charm, but none of them come close to the intriguing weirdness of the title piece. However, they are available on the Almost Worthless YouTube page. I'll leave you with a few screenshots:

By the way, according to this DVD, the golden age of stop-motion was in the early 1950's.