ADULT FAIRY TALES (1978) Blu-ray
Director: Harry Hurwitz (as Harry Tampa)
88 Films

"Someday your prince will come" and come again with 88 Films' Blu-ray upgrade of the Charles Band-produced erotic musical ADULT FAIRY TALES.

On the morn of his twenty-first birthday, the bashful Prince (Don Sparks, OPERATION PETTICOAT) learns from his royally-appointed "sexperts" (CAR WASH's Irwin Corey, YOUNG WINSTON's Robert Harris, and BEETLEJUICE's Simmy Bow) that he must lose his virginity and sire an heir by Thursday or lose his kingdom. When the kingdom's "present" fails to arouse the Prince, he reveals that the only woman that gets him aroused is the portrait of Princess Beauty (Linnea Quigley, NIGHT OF THE DEMONS) who vanished mysteriously years ago. The Prince takes to the road in search of a woman who can help him get it up before he becomes a pauper. Fey Jack (Jeff Doucette, SYNGENOR) and nympho Jill (Lindsay Freeman, BOARDINGHOUSE) are unable to talk him into a threesome, and Little Bo Peep (Angela Aames, BACHELOR PARTY) who is allergic to her sheep (and underwear) fails to raise his royal scepter. When Little Bo Peep stumbles upon the shoe of Gussie Gander (Brenda Fogarty, TRIP WITH THE TEACHER) – who was living on food stamps until pimp Sirus (Sy Richardson, REPO MAN) turned her into a madam and the shoe into a brothel – she cooks up a way to score a "king's ransom" by pairing the Prince with one of her girls. With time running out, the Prince offers up eighteen percent of his kingdom to Gussie and Sirus for their star attraction of the virginal Sleeping Beauty; however, The Frog Prince (Lee Arries) – who is only a frog "down there" – has heard about the virgin who might turn him fully human, and Merry Old King Cole (Bob Leslie, MAKO: JAWS OF DEATH) has also learned from Sheherazade (Nai Bonet, NOCTURNA) about the virgin and he will pay top dollar.

A follow-up to Charles Band's earlier X-rated musical CINDERELLA with Cheryl "Rainbaux" Smith, FAIRY TALES is a mess of a film that attempts to cram together characters from several stories yet still comes up short, resorting to added cutaways to an orgy of uncredited performers and a peeping tom (Moose Carlson, CAN I DO IT 'TILL I NEED GLASSES?) going back and forth from door to door in a single corridor supposedly spying on the action, which includes Snow White (Anne Gaybis, WHAM BAM THANK YOU SPACEMAN!) and her seven horny dwarves, an S&M act overseen by three nude, masked dominatrices doing an Andrews Sisters impression, and a Magic Mirror act. The musical numbers by Andrew Belling (DRACULA'S DOG) are humorous enough, with the highlights being Snow White's number and the Prince's visit to "mystic mama" Aunt La Voh (Martha Reeves of Martha and the Vandellas). Writer/producer Frank Ray Perilli (END OF THE WORLD) appears as the Baron of King Cole's vice squad who helps pad out the running time bickering with his dwarf assistant Otto (Angelo Rossitto, FREAKS). The scope photography of Daniel Pearl (TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE) is atypically static and flatly lit but the production design and costumes are colorful and there is plenty of frontal nudity on view even if the sex scenes are rather tame. Director Harry Tama (aka Harry Hurwitz) followed this up with the more entertaining softcore porn "documentary" AUDITIONS and then the disco vampire film NOCTURNA.

Released on VHS in a panned-and-scanned transfer of its R-rated version by Media Home Entertainment, the same transfer appeared on DVD from Band's Cult Video and then again from Full Moon. Full Moon remastered the film in HD in 2016 and released it on Blu-ray in a 2.35:1 widescreen transfer. The original camera negative-sourced transfer was the longer director's cut with additional nudity but the image was squeezed in spite of being in scope. In 2017, 88 Films released the same transfer on DVD but adjusted the image to 2.50:1 to eliminate the distortion and have done the same here with their Region B 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC widescreen Blu-ray. The compositions can look a little tight on top but the image does not look severely overmatted, so it is possible that something either went wrong during the transfer or it might have been shot using some of Todd AO's older anamorphic lenses (the falloff of sharpness at the extreme edges of some shots also suggests older lenses) even though no such process is mentioned in the credits (although Band's scope film THE DAY TIME ENDED was also shot in Todd AO). The static compositions seem composed to focus on the center of the image so the cropping of the VHS and DVD probably was not as bad as usual. The image is clean and colorful with detail fairing best in medium shots and close-ups. The only distracting damage is some sprocket damage that cinches the image a couple times at a reel change at roughly thirty-three minutes. The LPCM 2.0 mono track is also clean, with the music and dialogue having more presence than the very sparse sound design. Optional English HoH subtitles are provided, although they interpret "putana" as "Boot Anne".

Besides the theatrical trailer (1:31), the disc includes an audio commentary with producer/writer Perilli and producer Band whose look back on the film is generally good-humored but occasionally bittersweet (Perelli describers the credits sequence as an obituary), covering the casting of stand-up comedians, the multitude of "seventies bush," Quigley lying about being eighteen at the time of shooting, and the discovery of the additional nudity on the negative. Band contrasts low budget filmmaking then and now, in that they had to rent soundstages and build sets in these early films, and they also recall how they had to sneak the giant shoe into Griffith Park to shoot and then left it behind rather than try to sneak it back out. The disc comes with a reversible cover, and a limited run ordered directly from 88 Films comes with a handsome O-card. (Eric Cotenas)

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