burlesque fairy‐tale films, sometimes framed as dreams and often used as vehicles for stars, or topical satire, or both. Ali Baba Goes to Town (USA, 1937) chose the Middle East as a setting for political quips about Roosevelt's New Deal. In it Al Babson (Eddie Cantor) dreams himself into Baghdad where, finding the people fed up with the Sultan, he suggests Roosevelt's policies as a cure for the country's economic ills. Believing Al to be the son of Ali Baba, the Sultan agrees to the proposal, and abdicates in order to be able to run for the presidency. However, Al himself unintentionally becomes the people's favourite and is elected. Faced by a challenger preparing to use force against him, Al abandons the New Deal and wins the day with the help of a much older policy—a magic flying carpet.
In the same year, Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was such a success that it prompted numerous parodies. One was Ball of Fire (USA, 1942) which starred recent Oscar‐winner Gary Cooper and transposed the story to a city. The opening titles set the tone: ‘Once upon a time, in 1941 to be exact, there lived in a great tall forest—called New York—eight men who were writing an encyclopaedia.’ These scholars are chastely and single‐mindedly devoted to their academic labours until, in a quest to record demotic vocabulary, their leader, Professor Potts, goes out into the streets and brings back Sugarpuss O'Shea, a nightclub singer with underworld connections. Her uninhibited speech and behaviour cause the seven to fall at her feet immediately, but Potts holds out for a while before succumbing to the thrill of being kissed. Soon Sugarpuss's criminal associates want her back, and brain has to battle against brawn—with no help from magic—before Potts and Sugarpuss can be happy together. Ball of Fire is basically a romantic comedy; it does not depend upon ‘Snow White’, but it gets some fun out of the intermittent parallels.
A decade later Jack and the Beanstalk (USA, 1952) was a stopover for fast‐moving comic duo Abbott and Costello during a series of films in which they toured the universe—Mars, Hollywood, the Foreign Legion—and met a host of famous people—Jekyll and Hyde, Frankenstein, the Invisible Man. In the black‐and‐white opening sequence Jack and his friend Dinkelpuss work as babysitters. Reading a bedtime story to his charge, Jack falls asleep and dreams, in colour, that he is in it, and has accepted five beans from the butcher—Dinkelpuss—in exchange for a cow. The beans grow tall overnight, and at the top of the beanstalk Jack finds a hen that lays golden eggs. This factor lures the avaricious Dinkelpuss up as well. They rescue the prince and princess and defeat the giant before Jack's moment of glory is shattered by an abrupt black‐and‐white awakening. The screenplay was customized to suit the two stars' proven abilities, and they gave it their standard treatment—lots of cross‐talk and buffoonery—before moving on to Alaska.
Disney/Grimm came in for attention again when one new star and three old ones needed a framework. Snow White and the Three Stooges (USA, 1961) brought Swiss world champion figure‐skater Carol Heiss into CinemaScopic contact with Larry Fine, Moe Howard, and Joe de Rita, two of whom had been in films together since the 1930s. Spared by the queen's assassin, Snow White meets three wandering clowns and their young assistant, who turns out to be her childhood betrothed, Prince Charming. The prince rallies the people against the queen and rescues Snow White from the effects of the poisoned apple. Heiss gets opportunities to exhibit her ice‐skating prowess, and to sing a little; the Stooges throw pies and engage in their customary violent knockabout routines. Heiss gave up film‐making after this, but the Three Stooges went on to meet Hercules.
— Terry Staples
