With Warner Bros releasing their new Red Riding Hood movie, I thought I'd take this week to look at some of the previous versions of Little Red in film.
They... didn't so much use child actors in Faerie Tale Theatre. So Mary (Red) is played by Mary Steenbergen, who brings a certain charm to the role even while remaining firmly grown up.
Little Mary meets a woodcutter, Chris, and hits it off with him, but her dad is opposed to them spending too much time together, until she runs into an actually dangerous wolf, and Chris saves her. Then dad is okay with their budding relationship.
This is a cute episode in FTT. Not my favorite, but the content they added to the original story was done well enough to fill the time.
+JMJ+
ReplyDeleteI really liked the fact that the woodcutter got an actual character arc in this one, instead of just appearing ex machina at the end. =)
There are some productions of Faerie Tale Theatre in which I don't really mind that adults are playing child characters (The Snow Queen comes to mind immediately); but Little Red Riding Hood wasn't one of them. Mary Steenbergen just seemed so old. She could have played the mother! =S
On the other hand, Malcolm McDowell is the best wolf ever! I can't imagine another actor doing half as well in the same role. =D