Two Charles Band productions with a lot of nudity.
Produced by Charles Band, the erotic fairy tale musical Cinderella had been a financial success for distributor Group 1 in 1977 – but none of that success trickled back down to Band. So, once he had established a new distribution deal with a company called Compass International Pictures, he and frequent collaborator Frank Ray Perilli, the writer of Cinderella, decided to try to replicate the success of their earlier erotic fairy tale musical by making another movie in the same genre... and this time, hopefully, they would earn some profit.
That’s how we got the 1978 film Fairy Tales, which Band hired Harry Hurwitz (hiding behind the pseudonym Harry Tampa) to direct. Unlike Cinderella, this one isn’t a direct-but-naughty adaptation of one specific fairy tale. Instead, it’s a naughty journey through the universe of fairy tales.
Don Sparks stars as a Prince who needs to sire an heir now that he has turned 21. Problem is, none of the women who present themselves to him as potential mates cause anything to stir in his nether regions. The only thing that turns him on is a painting of a long-lost Princess. So he sets out on a search across his fairy tale kingdom, hoping to find the Princess of his dreams. Along the way, he crosses paths with the likes of Little Bo Peep, Jack and Jill, Snow White and the seven dwarves, and more. There’s even the woman who lives in a shoe, Gussie Gander – and in this take on the concept, the three-story shoe is not just a home, it’s a brothel.
As Band noted in his memoir Confessions of a Puppetmaster, that three-story shoe was the most interesting element of the Fairy Tales production, because the filmmakers set up this well-constructed shoe house in Griffith Park in Los Angeles without getting permission to do so, and filmed everything involving the shoe in just one day. When they were finished with the location, they weren’t sure what to do with the shoe, so they just left it there in the park for it to deteriorate and to be picked apart by visitors.
The Prince does eventually find the Princess he desires, who turns out to be genre icon Linnea Quigley as Sleeping Beauty.
I have a vague memory being at my maternal grandmother’s house sometime in the ‘80s, when I was a little kid, and tuning in watch a fairy tale movie on TV. That viewing came to a quick end once a famel fairy tale character popped her breasts out of her top while dancing and singing around the room. For decades, I wasn’t sure exactly what movie that was, but I assumed it was Fairy Tales. Now that I’ve caught up on both Cinderella and Fairy Tales, I can say with confidence that it was not Fairy Tales. It was Cinderella, and the breasts I saw that day belonged to Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith.
Around the time that he was making Fairy Tales, Band was also getting in on the ground floor of the home video business, licensing multiple titles from various companies and launching a VHS company called Meda Home Entertainment. (Named after his wife, Meda.) Eager to make product directly for the home video market, he put together a quick and cheap project called Auditions.
An ad was placed in various Los Angeles publications: “The producers of Cinderella and Fairy Tales are on a massive talent search for their new major motion picture production, Fairy Tales Part II. We are looking for the world's sexiest woman for the lead role of Sleeping Beauty; the world's sexiest man for the co-starring role of Prince Charming and the world's most unusual act or personality.” Two sets were constructed and Harry Hurwitz aimed his 16mm camera at the people who came in to audition for this non-existent movie over the course of two days.
As described in the pages of the book Empire of the 'B's: The Mad Movie World of Charles Band, Auditions is an “80-minute mix of endless and obviously faked scenes featuring various lowlifes stripping, dancing, wanking and yabbering on about their 'innermost erotic fantasies' alongside a surreal string of bottom-of-the-barrel Sunset Strip variety acts.” The fact that this “reality movie” is a sham is given away, if by nothing else, by the fact that Linnea Quigley shows up in the movie – not auditioning for a role as herself, but as a character named Sally Webster.
Fairy Tales is an entertaining movie. It’s not quite as much fun as Cinderella was, but if you liked that erotic fairy tale musical, you’ll get some enjoyment out of watching this erotic fairy tale musical as well.
Auditions, on the other hand, is nearly unwatchable, partly due to the murky quality of the video and partly due to the content, or lack thereof. That’s only a curiosity piece for Charles Band (and/or Linnea Quigley) completists and fans of ‘70s nudie flicks.
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