"The Good Shepherdess and the Evil Princess" is an amazingly dark fairy tale from Georges Méliès. And, in many ways, it's like the story of Cinderella....just darker and more shocking!
When the story begins, the nice shepherdess is hanging out with princess' nice son. But when the princess realizes he's hanging out with 'riffraff', she goes slap-happy and begins pummeling the poor lady! But apparently the princess is into slapping folks around, as when he returns to the castle, she spends her time slapping her servants, courtiers...well, everyone!!
Soon the fairy godmother arrives to the poor shepherdess and all sorts of weirdness occurs. Like too many of his films, all sorts of dancing girls appear and begin dancing about for no conceivable reason whatsoever!! After a whole lot of filler and nonsense, the fairy godmother appears to the princess. Instead of being in awe, the princess is her usual nasty self and the godmother exacts retribution....and it is BAD!!! See the film and see what I mean.
This is a complicated story for Georges Méliès...with many set and costume changes, a complex story...and even live sheep! It's obvious he pulled out all the stops (hence my relatively high score) BUT there also is quite a bit of silly nonsense and the story is awfully dark and nasty...hence the score isn't higher.
When the story begins, the nice shepherdess is hanging out with princess' nice son. But when the princess realizes he's hanging out with 'riffraff', she goes slap-happy and begins pummeling the poor lady! But apparently the princess is into slapping folks around, as when he returns to the castle, she spends her time slapping her servants, courtiers...well, everyone!!
Soon the fairy godmother arrives to the poor shepherdess and all sorts of weirdness occurs. Like too many of his films, all sorts of dancing girls appear and begin dancing about for no conceivable reason whatsoever!! After a whole lot of filler and nonsense, the fairy godmother appears to the princess. Instead of being in awe, the princess is her usual nasty self and the godmother exacts retribution....and it is BAD!!! See the film and see what I mean.
This is a complicated story for Georges Méliès...with many set and costume changes, a complex story...and even live sheep! It's obvious he pulled out all the stops (hence my relatively high score) BUT there also is quite a bit of silly nonsense and the story is awfully dark and nasty...hence the score isn't higher.