Snow White and the Dwarfs' Secret

The next movie I watched was an absolutely delightful Czech-German-Italian-Spanish co-production movie. "Snow White and the Dwarves' Secret", (Snehurka a Sedm Trpasliku / Schneewittchen und das Geheimnis der Zwerge). This lovely piece is from 1992.

It begins with the king leaving for a crusade and leaving the kingdom to be ruled by the Queen. She is vain and somewhat stupid woman. She starts her rule by sending Snow White with the court jester to the royal hunting castle, out of the way, because Snow White is becoming more and more beautiful every day. The dwarves in this are engineers and inventors, and they invent a truth telling machine - which is the magic mirror. One of them takes this machine to the court, dressed in a mechanical knight suit, that makes him as long as all the other men.

He falls in love with the queen, and therefore agrees to kill Snow White, but he's a good man, and cannot kill her. He kills a passing by wild boar, instead, to take its heart and liver to the queen as evidence of that Snow White is dead.

The Jester, who's in love with Snow White, starts looking for her, and manages to find out the truth about the Black Knight, that is the dwarf in knight costume. He agrees to take him to Snow White, but they are too late, the Queen has managed to find her first, and has given her the apple, and she is laying in the crystal coffin. The Fool wishes to say goodbye to her, and lifts her from the coffin, which makes the apple piece to pop out from her throat, and she's breathing and alive again.
It turns out that the Fool is no fool at all, but a prince, and they marry and live happily ever after.

The queen, on the other hand, goes home, and finds the knight machine and realizes that her Black Knight was a dwarf, and as the mirror tells her she is NOT the most beautiful woman in the kingdom, she gets angry and breaks the mirror, which in turn burns her badly and destroys her beauty. The priest, who has been following the happenings behind the scene, takes her to a cloister, where she can finally be useful and learn some humility.

Natalie Minko is a delightful princess, joyful, innocent, but intelligent and brave.

Gudrun Landgrebe is truly a beautiful queen. Her hairdos are amazing. They have given her a long, red hair, which is braided into crowns... Really fascinating.

The Jester is played by Alessandro Gassman, who is better known to the world as the face... or body, actually - from a couple of ads. And, yes, he was 27 in the movie, and even though he was very kind to the eyes, he's even better now, 20 years later.

I also loved the dwarves. The Black Knight (Sándor Köleséry) especially was lovely. So in love with the queen and being seen as a long man... but yet gentle and kind. So aware of his own weakness, and powerlessness... And he wasn't ugly either :-)