Once Upon a Mattress
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Actor: Brittany Gray, Carol Burnett, Denis O'Hare, Tracey Ullman, Zooey DeschanelBrand: Buena Vista Home Video
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 90 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-12-20
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Buena Vista Home Entertainment / Disney
Product features:
- An all-star cast brings theic fairy tale THE PRINCESS AND THE PEA to life in this outrageously funny adaptation of the aclaimed Broadway musical. Queen Aggravain (Carol Burnett) sabotages the efforts of every young princess who hopes to marry her son, Prince Dauntless (Denis O'Hare) -- and no one else can settle down until he does! Honorable Sir Harry is determined to marry the lovely Lady Lar
DVD Reviews of Once Upon a Mattress
DVD Review: The Princess and the P.C.
Summary: 3 Stars
First, the good news: Carol Burnett has done a new version of the musical that catapulted her to stardom, "Once Upon a Mattress".
Now, the bad: A sassy, funny show has been Disneyfied to death. I believe it was the late great Allan Sherman who said, "A camel is a horse that was designed by a committee." The committee approach is what is wrong with this version: things that didn't need changing have been trampled to death, rendered bland and humourless and politically correct, to please the particular constituency of the Magic Kingdom.
The problems begin, appropriately enough, at the beginning, where two songs ("Many Moons Ago" and "Opening for a Princess") that serve as sufficient exposition for theatre audiences have been jettisioned in favour of a young girl sadly tromping through- where else?- Disneyland, in search of Princess Winifred. It's a silly enough concept, but some brilliant corporate mind has the kid talking to Snow White and Cinderella en route, even telling Cinderella, "Loved your movie."
Incredibly enough, it's mostly downhill from there. While Carol Burnett is wonderful as control-freak Queen Aggravaine, she'd be wonderful reading the phone book, and such an appearance might do her more professional good than this namby-pamby production. Tracey Ullman takes on Burnett's old role of Winifred the Woebegone, and the best that can be said is that she gets the woebegone part right. Ullman is a bit long in the tooth to be playing the part, and her comedic style does not work for the role. At many points, she seems to be more intent on playing her dimples to the camera than on creating laughs; there is little wit, sass or point to her portrayal.
There is a wild variance in the quality of the work done by the rest of the cast; Tom Smothers is quite good as King Sextimus, even though his big moment towards the end ("I! Can ! TALK!") has been directed down to a whisper. Denis O'Hare is too old by half to be attempting the role of Dauntless, and can't be understood part of the time, a largish problem when the lyrics are as intricate as the ones in this show. Michael Boatman manages the incredible feat of making the Jester interesting in spite of the fact that the Jester's big number, "Very Soft Shoes", has been cut. A good Jester can take more bows than the leads on the strength of this song, and one wonders why it was omitted.
The performances of Zooey Deschanel and Matthew Morrison make for the worst Sir Harry and Lady Larkin I've ever seen, high-school productions of this show not excepted. The lovely, yet satiric "Normandy" is completely mangled by these two, with both of them so intent on harmonising that they forget that the words MEAN something. The song is both a love song and a Borscht Belt spoof of love songs; the imagery of a "beach where the peach blossom blows" is closely followed by the streetwise "And I know how to reach / a man who knows / a man who knows." Deschanel and Morrison haven't a clue what all of this is about.
But then, neither did much of anyone else connected with this version. The direction is flabby and pointless, with many a gag thrown away and many a laugh stifled. The design of the sets is perfectly dreadful, with a sepia murk imposed on nearly everything, and furnishings wildly anachronistic for the period of the story. Many of the costumes look downright cheap, although Carol Burnett's (by the great Bob Mackie, I understand) are terrific.
The worst of it all is that a show that was once bawdy and graceful, hysterical and touching has been dumbed down and PC'ed to the point that there IS no point to it any more. There was once real wit and bite to the proceedings; this production is so bland, it very nearly qualifies as a formal remake of Disney's "Cinderella".
If you're a Carol Burnett fan, as I am, you'll be willing to suffer through this to get a chance to see her in it, and it must be admitted that the lady still has what it takes to make an audience laugh, uncontrollably at times. But what she's surrounded with is not nearly as good as she is, and that's more than a pity, it's a crying shame, given what "Once Upon a Mattress" should be and once was, many moons ago.
Description of Once Upon a Mattress
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