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- Set deep in the Appalachian mountains around 1920, Mutzmag is a live-action adaptation of an American trickster tale about a plucky young girl named Mutzmag who sets out on a journey with her two half-sisters and winds up at the cabin of two backwoods ogres. Using only a ball of string and a pocketknife, Mutzmag outwits the villains, rescues a white horse, and wins a cash reward. Mutzmag is one of only a hand full of traditional trickster tales that feature a resourceful female in the leading role.
- A girl acts spoiled and doesn't want to marry any of the suitors that come for her hand. One guy, who she nick-names "Bristlelip" makes a deal with her father for her hand. The next day "Bristlelip" comes disguised as a peddler, and the girl becomes his unwilling bride. He carries her off to his crude cabin, all the while commenting on her questions about properties. The girl proves to be an unfit (at housework) wife at first, trying her hand at cooking, spinning, basketry, and even sales of pottery to no avail.
- Willa places the ancient "Snow White" story in a realistic America setting about 1915. The jealous queen is Regina Worthington, an aging beauty whose stage career has soured. Snow White is her beautiful and talented stepchild Willa. The cottage of the seven dwarfs has been changed into a traveling medicine show run by a failed Shakespearean actor named Dr. Alfonzo and his two odd-ball companions: a flamboyant Irish Indian called Chief Tonka and a dancing dwarf named Billy Bug. They sell Chief Tonka's Elixir of Life a highly alcoholic concoction that is supposed to reverse aging.
An upper-class, late 19th-century dining room where a wealthy industrialist presides as "king" sets the stage for this version of "The Frog King," the classic tale about a princess's promise to a frog. The frog invites himself to a formal family dinner, horrifying the princess by jumping from soupbowl to soupbowl.
"It's particularly satisfying to see a formal Victorian dinner party interrupted during the soup course by the arrival of a real live frog. After hopping under the table, the diminutive latecomer is gently retrieved by a butler, who "seats" him next to the paiunfully embarrassed young mistress of the house. From his perch on a stack of velvet cushions the frog proceeds to mingle in a delightfully froglike way, jumping into soupbowls and overturning wine glasses...little kids in particular may feel keen gratification when he splashes merrily around the table without suffering unpleasant consequences. Grown-ups may feel more amused by the aplomb of Ernest Graves in the role of the host and by the implications of the heroine's discomfort, which wittily evokes a good deal of the social and erotic panic associated with adolescence."
-- Gary Arnold, The Washington Post
CINE Golden Eagle winner, American Film Festival -- Blue ribbon