mermaid fairy‐tale films, a sub‐genre derived directly or indirectly from Hans Christian Andersen's ‘The Little Mermaid’. None of the films is interested in the metaphysical ideas of that story; instead, they concentrate on exploring the comic and tragic potential of beautiful voices, tails versus legs, cross‐species relationships, and slippery sex.
In Andersen, the mermaid has her tongue cut off as the price to be paid for entering the human world, but in the comedy Miranda (UK, 1948) that idea is turned on its head. Throughout, the mermaid's tongue is her chief strength. Initially, she uses it to persuade a handsome doctor she has rescued to take her to London. There she gives voice to any desires she has, telling men how strong they are, and what nice ears they have; and she takes what she wants when she sees it, devouring bowl after bowl of cockles. Such conduct charms, excites, and seduces three men, who vie with each other for the pleasure of carrying her around in their arms—an operation rendered necessary by the fact that, in order to keep her tail permanently draped, she is posing as an invalid unable to walk. When her secret gets out, she returns to the sea, fearing to be made an aquarium exhibit. In any case, she has got what she really came for: whereas Andersen's mermaid wants an immortal soul, all Miranda wants from her contact with humans is impregnation.
Another mermaid comedy begins a bit like Andersen: the heroine of Splash (USA, 1984) loses her voice—albeit temporarily—and acquires the ability to walk. Andersen's ending, however, is reversed. Twice Madison saves Allen from drowning, once when he is 8 and again 20 years later: her presence magically gives him the power to breathe underwater. When she comes to New York to find him, her tail dries out and is transformed into a pair of legs. At first unable to communicate with Allen, she learns English from watching television. Allen falls in love with her, not realizing she is a mermaid. The idyll ends when Madison's legs get wet and her tail returns; she suffers the fate that Miranda feared—being exhibited and experimented on—before Allen comes to the rescue and plunges into the deep with her so that they can be together forever. Instead of dying in an attempt to become human, she has caused a human to renounce humanity and become aquatic.
A range of other films (including Hans Christian Andersen) have based themselves more closely on ‘The Little Mermaid’, but none has stuck with that text to the end. Disney's The Little Mermaid (USA, 1989), because its medium is animation rather than live action, is able to follow Andersen in presenting the underwater world and its characters in considerable detail, illuminated by songs, before Ariel goes to see the witch Ursula. The deal they strike is the standard one—Ariel gives up her beautiful voice in exchange for legs—but a time limit is added to it: Ariel has only three days in which to win Prince Eric's love. If she fails, she will not die (as in Andersen); instead she will become Ursula's possession. By using Ariel's voice, Ursula thwarts her attempts to charm the prince. When the time limit expires, Ariel's distraught father relinquishes his kingdom in order to save her from perpetual enslavement. At the climax, Prince Eric's ship kills Ursula. Ariel becomes human again, and the prince marries her. Only a final shot of Ariel's father, realizing sadly that he has lost his daughter not just to a husband but to a species that lives in a different element, suggests that this happy ending is not happy for everyone.
Andersen himself appears as a character in Rousalochka (USSR/Bulgaria, 1976), telling the story to a little girl in a stagecoach. He presents a new side to the fabled beauty of mermaids' voices—it is their siren singing, rather than a storm, that causes the prince's ship to be dashed against rocks in the first place—before dwelling on the particular mermaid who saves the prince. Andersen then inserts himself, as a troubadour, into the story he is telling, and persuades a witch to make the mermaid human. In exchange, the mermaid has to give up her voice before trying to win the prince's love. During the attempt, she is exposed as a mermaid, and condemned to be burned at the stake. The prince rescues her, but is killed in a duel, till the witch intercedes at the mermaid's behest and revives him. For this she must pay with her life, unless someone is willing to die in her place. The troubadour does. As a result she will live forever, but not with the prince; she returns to the sea alone, to be seen in future only by believers. In stressing that love requires sacrifice, and in not endorsing miscegenation, this adaptation comes closest in spirit to Andersen's original story.
— Terry Staples
