Movie Musings

 Welcome!

Carol Burnett in Bob Mackie costume; Once Upon a Mattress

 My husband and I have been enjoying a few movies lately. We are old-fogey fans of dvds and blue-ray discs. We like to watch what WE want to see, not be limited by what is available through other sources.

You also know (if you read much of my blog at all) that I have a life-long love of paper dolls.

Vintage paper doll sheet, “Eva”

I thought, let’s combine the two! So hang onto your hat and let’s go for some Movie Musings.

We recently watched the made-for-tv movie (2005) “Once Upon A Mattress”, which is a musical based on the Princess and the Pea fairytale. Famous American actress Carol Burnett got her push to fame when she was performing in the same name play, playing the ‘Princess’, and a talent scout saw her.

Carol Burnett in a Bob Mackie costume for Once Upon A Mattress

Only in this movie Carol Burnett plays the Queen Mother (with a mostly silent Tommy Smothers playing the King). Bob Mackie created the fabulous gowns the Queen wears. Just seeing Ms. Burnett’s costumes is worth the price of the movie! Tracy Ullman plays the Princess and Denis O’Hare is the Prince.

Paper doll artist extraordinaire Cory drew the above paper dolls based on the movie.

Next we watched the Disney musical “Enchanted”. Amy Adams sings all of her songs in this movie, and again, the costumes are fun. Susan Sarandon plays the Evil Queen with Patrick Dempsey as the hapless bystander who gets sucked into this fairytale comedy/drama. Paper doll designer Cory does a great job with 2 different paper dolls of Giselle, the main princess character.

Paper dolls by Cory for “Enchanted”

When I was younger, every year our family looked forward to certain movies the networks would play, once a year. This was (gasp!) before there were vhs/dvd/cd/streaming options.

One of my favorites was (and still is) 

The Wizard of Oz.

Movie still, Wizard of Oz

It’s not too hard to find paper dolls depicting Dorothy, especially in her Judy Garland movie attire. I only found one paper doll set that had a (single) costume change for any of the other characters. Too bad. I think there are lots of opportunities for fun clothing changes in the movie (think Munchkins, beautiful witches and the Emerald City). Here are a few Dorothy dolls I found:

By artist Guillem Medina

By artist Ralph Hodadan?

A Dover Little Activity Book publication, artist Tom Tierney

Another movie we recently watched was Disney’s Malificent.

Movie still

This is a take on the Sleeping Beauty fairytale, with more of the evil fairy’s side of the story. (Fun trivia: Maleficent is derived from the Latin for do evil or harm.)

Angelina Jolie is simply excellent in her portrayal of a fantasy being going through a range of emotions. Her costumes were so scary they had a hard time casting a young Aurora, until Ms. Jolie’s own daughter Vivienne was chosen. She is just adorable and perfect for the part. Maleficent’s costumes are very original, and Ms. Jolie did all her own stunts throughout the movie.

Paper doll and costumes by Cory

I was chatting with a Disney fan and was horrified to discover she had never seen the original Disney Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, Sleeping Beauty or Alice in Wonderland! These are classics!

Movie poster, first released Dec, 1937

There have been so many versions and remakes since then, but Disney produced the first full length animated movie. There are quite a lot of Snow White themed paper dolls to choose from. Here are just a few:

Spanish, from 1940-1960

The next set is from a Wee Wisdom magazine drawn for Disney by Dorothy Wagstaff. I believe it is dated 1938.

Both sets are most likely produced in the Philippines 

My next favorite movie is actually more of a character than a specific movie. I have collected and read most of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ novels (there are 91 of them!) including the 26 Tarzan novels. This led to me collecting Tarzan movies. There are quite a few, plus ‘jungle’ spin-offs and tv series. If you have never seen Elmo Lincoln’s silent movie of Tarzan, check it out!

A later Tarzan series, 1921

This was followed by a 1933 Tarzan series featuring Buster Crabbe.

The earliest Tarzan paper doll I found is from the Sunday Post, June 2, 1935. Charlotte Ware is the artist.

Surprisingly I did not find many Tarzan paper dolls. This is a Color Form set, similar to a paper doll.

Tarzan Cartoon Kit, Color Form; 1966

The last movie I want to mention is Hello Dolly!

I had the opportunity to see a live production of this musical recently. Many actresses have played the title role on Broadway and theaters all over. 

Pearl Bailey as Dolly

1966 production with Betty Grable starring

Barbra Streisand starred in the 1969 movie. Gene Kelly directed and Walter Matthau co-starred. The movie won 3 Academy Awards, and was nominated for 4 more.

Paper doll set by Tom Tierney

Carol Channing is best known for her portrayal of Dolly in theaters and Broadway.

Carol Channing

I found this great paper doll set of her by David Wolfe:

The set comes with more costumes!

While I have many more favorite movies, and MANY more favorite paper dolls, I’ll end for now.

I hope you have had fun with this blog, as I certainly had fun putting it together.

‘Til next time,

inkspired

A few of the websites I visited while researching for this blog, in no particular order:

concordtheatricals.com

Pinterest 

imbd.com

Wikipedia

Britannica.com

filmaffinity.com

eBay.com

Etsy.com