Beauty vs Beast: Fish Witch

JA from MNPP here with this week's mite-late edition of this week's "Beauty Vs Beast" - sorry for the unexpected day-long delay, what can we say, a sea-witch stole our voice from us. Coincidentally The Film Experience is celebrating the year 1989 in the lead up to this month's Supporting Actress Showdown and whaddya know 1989 was the year that another gorgeous princess, not myself, had the exact same thing happen to her! I handled it with a much finer degree of decorum, natch, but she got Prince Eric so she wins. (Mmmm Prince Eric.) Yes I speak of Disney's The Little Mermaid, which is bringing us this week's animated face-off.

poll by twiigs.com

Life's full of tough choices... innit??? I feel like this one could go either way really, so making you cases in the comments could prove important. Sway the little fishies this way or that, people.

PREVIOUSLY If you felt a little falling sensation - kinda simultaneously plummeting forward and back - as you picked between Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak in last week's Vertigo round you ultimately made like Hitch and came out blonde - well blonde eventually (inevitably) anyway - in the end. Judy, poor poor Judy, won your sympathies along with 71% of the vote. Said Leslie19:

"Judy is the perfect Hitchcockian heroine: A blonde puzzle, with a past. A great wardrobe and the perfect palette for techicolor, in this case his use of green. Is there anything more to say?"

Our Coven: Ursula The Sea Witch

Team Experience is assembling our own coven of preferred witches for Halloween. Here's abstew with ... well, you know who

After nearly two decades of sub par animated films (I'm looking your way, The Black Caldron) that would've made Uncle Walt turn over in his cryogenic freezer, 1989's The Little Mermaid, the studio's first fairy tale in 30 years, finally brought back the art of animation and started the modern Disney renaissance. The film had everything going for it - sassy red-headed mermaid princess, Caribbean accented crab, show-stopping musical numbers, and, most importantly, a voluptuously wicked, tentacled diva villainess.

Early concept art shows that Ursula the Sea Witch's look went through many transformations before the final look of half octopus / half woman (and what a woman - Ursula is said to be modeled after the drag queen Divine). To voice the sea witch, the filmmakers offered the part to Bea Arthur who turned it down due to her work on The Golden Girls and Elaine Stritch had been cast but clashed with lyricist Howard Ashman. Actress Pat Carroll brought Ursula to life delivering some of the film's best lines ("You got it, sweetcakes. No more talking, singing, Zip!) There's always time for a one-liner while being evil. And don't underestimate the importance of body language!

Broom? No use for them under the sea. And probably best not to mention anything wooden as she meets her demise staked by the bow of a ship.

Favored Spell: Fortunately she knows a little magic - it's a talent that she always has possessed. Her spell of choice is taking voices (conveniently stowed in her shell necklace - fashion and function) and turning fishtails into legs in return. Although, if you can't pay the price, you just might find yourself a part of her little garden.

Familiars: Her babies, her poor little poopsies: a pair of scheming eels named Flotsam and Jetsam. They each share a glowing yellow eye that allows Ursula to see what they see.

Pointy Hat?: Her shock of white hair (styled with mousse - how 80's of her!) is pointy enough.

"Only Bad Witches Are Ugly": Considering her beauty regime (waterproof lipstick!) and the fact that she can change you into a weird plant with eyes, I wouldn't call her ugly to her face. At one point she does transform herself into a brunette version of Ariel with Joan Crawford eyebrows, so she's got options. Plus, anyone modeled after a drag queen is gonna look fabulous!

Meet the other members of our coven

"It won't cost much... just your voice!"

I realize it's only* voicework but I'm bit sad that Samantha Morton's voice has been removed from the upcoming Spike Jonze picture Her. She was to voice the operating system that Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with in lieu of, one supposes, flesh and blood options. I thought Samantha was brilliant in insert anything from her filmography here, and even though it was only* voicework, I was anxious to "see" her again.

Morton has the most terrible ratio of talent-to-role opportunities. I don't quite get what's happened to her career as she's one of the best screen actors alive. Still, since the world has a very short memory I didn't notice much mourning online about her replacement when the news broke. Or maybe that's just because Scarlett Johansson, her replacement, is early Aughts popular again. Scarlett weathered the storm of a lame but lucrative patch in her career in which she seemed more model/spokesperson/celebrity than talent. She seems interested in actually ACTING again (see multiple trips to the stage and a wonderful spin on Black Widow the second time around) so I am free to root for her again, too.

Scarlett's voice is a wonder, it's true. But also quite an expected choice for this type of role since her timbre is so effortlessly sexy. I guess I didn't quite expect the obvious from Spike Jonze which is why I'm still processing this news.

Anyway, do you miss Samantha Morton? If you're asking "who?"... please state your age! She couldn't have faded from collective memory that quickly, could she?

When it comes to singing actresses, I'm as greedy as Ursula! In other Beautiful Voice News, Anna Kendrick has been cast as Cinderella in Rob Marshall's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's fairytale mashup classic Into the Woods (2014)... a movie we're tracking closely but very worried about.

Since we first fell in love with Kendrick as evil scheming Sondheim-singing Fritzi in Camp (2003) and haven't ever felt quite that proprietary/excited about her again (but loved hearing the voice again in Pitch Perfect), this is potentially very good news. With Into the Woods and The Last Five Years (just discussed) both arriving in (presumably) 2014, and so quickly after Kendrick's first real success as a headliner (Pitch Perfect) will she be the first modern actress to really embrace becoming a star of film musicals?

Can you already here her version of "At the Palace"? (♥ that song!)

He's a very smart Prince,

He's a Prince who prepares.

Knowing this time I'd run from him,

He spread pitch on the stairs.

I was caught unawares.

And I thought: well, he cares-

This is more than just malice.

Better stop and take stock

While you're standing here stuck

On the steps of the palace.

-Cinderella in "Into the Woods" 

Everyone else in Mainstream Hollywood seems to think of musicals as one-off larks, something to do to say that you've done it or to demonstrate how "game" you are to mix things up. (Though Anne Hathaway won an Oscar that way she's built her massive career on diversity of genre so I'd say she's unlikely to stick to the form or even return to it for some time. Sad face. CZJ was obviously born to do them but it took how many years between Chicago and Rock of Ages?) If Kendrick makes a success of both of her plum movie musical gigs next year, I shall build a shrine to her.  

* I realize "only voicework" might enrage some readers and some voice actors! I don't mean it derogatorialy but for whatever reason I've observed that many TFE readers really value voice-only work in movies more than I do. Is this generational and tied to the second golden age of animation? I wonder... I mean I don't want there to be a whole Oscar category (do you?) but I do agree that brilliance is possible within the limitations of acting with one's voice alone. 

Twins: Disney Villains x 2

Celebrating twins daily at 2:22 PM while we're in Gemini

Not all twins share the same parents. Though I suppose one could argue that Walt Disney's children are legion.

Case #1

Ursula & Medusa

If Ursula had legs and Medusa could join her crocs in the water, they could practically become a synchronized swim team.

• One wave memorable up-dos offset by dangly earrings
• Drag queen ready make-up
• Explicitly bra-less bouncing boobage and slovenly bodies
• Adores lounging about on seashell like thrones
• Terrible at feigning niceness to young girls
• ...but great at manipulating them into dangerous situations.
• Two reptilian henchmen (Flotsam & Jetsam / Brutus & Nero)

Case #2

Lady Tremaine & Maleficent

• High cheekbones, arched eyebrows, altogether angular gorgon beauty
• Fond of the purple collar
• Really really fussy about Royal Events and who is and is not invited to such things
• Identical Twin voices courtesy of the same actress Eleanor Audley (pictured above)

Case #3... ??? Make it in the comments.

"Who Will Rescue Me?"

I'm lost at sea without a friend
This journey, will it ever end?
Who will rescue me?

So... goes the ballad that opens The Rescuers (1977), as Little Orphan Penny drops her message in a bottle into the swamp. I swear Shelby Flint's vocals dribbled out over the sides of my television like syrup. Who will rescue me from this treacle?!?

It wasn't always this way with The Rescuers and me. In fact, as a child it was one of my favorite movies. (When you voted for it in a poll some time ago, I was excited to revisit it!) As it turns out, sometimes childhood loves are best left in childhood.

Has this ever happened to you with an old formerly beloved movie?

As you can see in the still above, the animation team let the texture of the canvas bleed through and for a few seconds as the movie kicked off I thought "how lovely" (I'm not always so pleased with today's beautiful and shiny but often sterile animated images) but as the movie progressed it turned out not so lovely at all, a mess of inconsistent animation that often looked rushed through production.

For those who need a refresher, The Rescuers is about a girl named Penny who has been "borrowed" from her orphanage by a pawn shop owner named "Medusa" (wicked highly enjoyable voicework from Oscar regular Geraldine Page). Medusa wants a gargantuan diamond called The Devil's Eye which is buried in a cave that Penny is small enough to slip into in a creepy place called Devil's Bayou. Penny's bottled cry for help reaches the Rescue Aid Society, an international organization of ethnically and geographically stereotyped mice who meet in the United Nations building: HIGH CONCEPT!

While the characters are cute enough -- particularly elegant rodent Bianca (Eva Gabor) and a dragonfly named Evinrud -- the primary emotion that The Rescuers seems to be going for is pity. It works but "pity" isn't the most cathartic or endearing emotion to rest a whole movie on. Penny is either too young, too dumb or too helpless to be carrying this picture. The other significant problem is that despite a scant 78 minute running time, there's not enough plot to fill it with. Time and again we have a plot complications that are as thrilling as treading water. The narrative doesn't actually move until the complication is over. Like so:

1. Oh no, the mice are in trouble.
2. Cue frantic activity on or offscreen!
3. Whew, the mice are okay. So...
4. Back to the plot where you left it. Proceed.

And let's not even talk about the excessive amount of time we spent with the albatross Orville [yawn]. He's mere connective tissue to take you from Act 1 (New York) to Act 2 (Devil's Bayou) and last time I checked no intermission between acts ever lasted as long as Orville's fumbling flying routine.

The pictures sole bright spot then is Madame Medusa.

Seeing the movie as an adult, it's shocking to realize that she's nearly a carbon copy of Cruella de Vil: She enters the picture throwing open a door violently; She loses her temper constantly; She drives like a madwoman in vehicles that leave huge puffs of smoke behind them; She has a bumbling human henchman she despises; She has a one track mind (fur/diamonds) and she even has a scene where she slows down her "car" creepily while searching for the hiding protagonist, that immediately brings the famous "soot" scene in 101 Dalmatians to mind. When she's not recalling Cruella she's lifting Miss Hannigan from Annie.

In other words, she's no original.

Disney Generations: Cruela begat Medusa begat Ursula.

But if we needed Medusa as a missing link evolutionary step to get us from Cruella to Ursula than we owe Medusa a bag full of those diamonds she covets. Movie buffs have long noted that Disney has two types of villains: rotund or spindly. Medusa splits the difference, her arms and legs are skinny and her movements scream "bony villain" with their sharp angles, yet her body is saggy and slovenly. You know she's not the slip of a thing that she used to be. In 10 more years, she'll be a big as a house(boat). 

Though I can no longer claim I have any affection for The Rescuers, I still completely dig Medusa and her darling crocodiles Flotsam and Jetsam.... I mean, Nero and Brutus! They're keepers. Or at least placeholders until Ursula, Flotsam & Jetsam arrive 12 years later for The Little Mermaid.

The Rescuers: C
Related Posts: Beauty & The Beast and 101 Dalmatians.