THE SEVEN DWARFS TO THE RESCUE (1951)
aka I sette nani alla riscossa
Article 3465 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-2-2010
Posting Date: 2-8-2011
Directed by Paolo William Tamburella
Featuring Rossana Podesta, Roberto Risco, Georges Marchal
Country: Italy
What it is: Fairy tale sequel

While Prince Charming is off to the wars, Snow White is kidnapped by the evil prince of darkness, who is intent on making her his queen. It’s up to the plucky seven dwarfs to come to her rescue.

Advance word has it that this particular children’s movie is the bottom of the barrel, the worst of the worst, so bad it’s funny, etc. Well, I’ve seen worse, including a few that don’t even have the excuse of having been dubbed into English from other languages. I’ve also seen bad children’s movies that have been funnier and weirder; practically anything from Mexico would fill the bill here. And though it’s been obviously shot with a badly undernourished budget, the movie does dredge up a bit of authentic (albeit austere) fairy tale atmosphere. Also, it has enough energy to keep you from nodding off. Its worst problems involve its attempts at humor; the comic antics of the seven dwarfs are terribly lame, and the jokes about Snow White’s fat nanny certainly don’t improve things. My question is – did they find time to come up names for all of the seven dwarfs? I only caught five myself; Mousey, Toto, Chubby, Andy and Nicky. Strangest sequence: the dwarfs fall into a trap that takes them underwater into a kingdom of water nymphs.