Once Upon a Mattress

2005

I watched this TV movie of the hilarious Mary Rodgers/Marshall Barer musical adaptation of “The Princess and the Pea” when it was first aired. I watched it for the second time today, and it is so much better than I remembered! Of course, now I know the show (and the cast). The cast was great. Here is my problem. Lol!

This show has a couple songs that are easily (perhaps wisely) cut. Clearly, to make this 90 minutes, they had to cut something. (They did a great job of getting the good dialogue bits in and moving on.) But they didn’t cut what I would like them to have cut.

Yes, certainly cut “Very Soft Shoes”! It’s not very good and has nothing to do with the story. They cut it. One point for Gryffindor. But “The Spanish Panic” has to go, too. This show is more about the lyrics than the music, so cut the instrumental number. It’s a long sequence, and it’s inherently disappointing. You simply cannot choreograph “the most complicated and exhausting dance in the world.” With a film version like this, you could get around it by making a frantic and outrageous montage that shows increasingly complex moves with quicker and quicker cuts, getting it all into a minute. They failed that. And it was a particularly sedate “Spanish Panic” at that. I understand why they cut “An Opening for a Princess”: it’s wonderfully stuffed with clever entendres that aren’t very dirty but still might raise the rating above The Wonderful World of Disney. Likewise, the King’s “Man-to-Man Talk” (wherein the mute king explains to his sheltered 35-year-old son what to expect on his wedding night) should be his greatest moment, and with Tommy Smothers you should be able to get some great physical comedy…but it would probably be a bit too racy. This version was very safe, and there was no piece of dumbshow that would have made Dauntless suddenly understand. A sadly missed opportunity. But I get it.

Finally—just as in the 1972 TV special—they cut my favorite song from the show: “Yesterday I Loved You”. The music is beautiful, and the puns-through-enjambment schtick (this show’s secret weapon) is also used to great effect. But, in this version, they had Harry and Larkin sing “Normandy” instead. Yes, it’s a nice song, but it doesn’t fit in the fairytale whimsy to sing about a real place. It always bugs me. They should have let them sing “Yesterday…” and left “Normandy” alone.

All that said, though, I thoroughly enjoyed it! Ullman and Burnett are perfect. O’Hare is a great Dauntless. Even the annoyingly twee actors (Matthew Morrison and Zooey Deschanel) playing the annoyingly twee couple (Sir Harry and Lady Larkin) do well. Sadly, although the Jester is in this version, his part is basically cut out, and the Wizard gets way too much screen time doing nothing special.

I want a new feature film version! Hmm… Amanda Seyfried as Fred? No, Sutton Foster or Annaleigh Ashford! Grey Henson as Dauntless. Ariana Grande for Larkin, and Jake Gyllenhaal as Harry. Could LuPone do Aggravaine? Hmm. I don’t know. That’s a tough call. Kelli O’Hara could pull it off, but she has no name power in film. And I refuse stunt casting Meryl Streep or Emma Thompson. Ana Gasteyer did it for Encores last year, so she might be a valid choice. And King Sextimus? A younger Dick Van Dyke, ideally. A good physical comedian. He doesn’t sing, so that should leave the field open. Someone affable but with a naughty streak…Kumail Nanjiani, except he’s too young. Tina Fey in drag! Who’s the male Fey? Steve Martin? I like that…