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Hansel and Gretel | |
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Directed by | Len Talan |
Screenplay by | Nancy Weems, Len Talan |
Based on | Hansel and Gretel by Brothers Grimm |
Produced by | Yoram Globus Menahem Golan |
Starring | David Warner Hugh Pollard Nicola Stapleton Emily Richard Cloris Leachman |
Cinematography | Ilan Rosenberg |
Edited by | Irit Raz |
Music by | Engelbert Humperdinck |
Production company | |
Distributed by | The Cannon Group, Inc. |
Release dates |
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Running time | 84 minutes |
Countries | United States, Israel |
Language | English |
Hansel and Gretel (alternatively: Cannon Movie Tales: Hansel and Gretel) is a 1987 American Israeli fantasy musical film, part of the 1980s film series Cannon Movie Tales. It is directed by Len Talan and stars David Warner, Cloris Leachman, Hugh Pollard and Nicola Stapleton. It is a contemporary version of the classic tale of Hansel and Gretel of the Brothers Grimm. Like the other Cannon Movie Tales, the film was filmed entirely in Israel.
Hansel (Hugh Pollard) and Gretel (Nicola Stapelton) are the offspring of an impoverished woodcutter (David Warner) and his wife (Emily Richard). After being told to leave their home by their mother, Hansel and Gretel wrongly walk into the 'North woods' where they discover a delicious gingerbread house. Unbeknown to them it's a witch named Griselda (Cloris Leachman) that lives there.
The woodcutter's wife was changed into Hansel and Gretel's biological mother instead of their stepmother. Also, she is not evil, as she sends the children away in anger for (unintentionally) causing her trouble rather than just wanting them gone and shows regret for her actions when they don't return home, even offering to help her husband search for them.
Richard Scheib from Moria.co gave it one star and wrote: "Hansel and Gretel is so cheaply produced that you can clearly see the painted cardboard that is supposed to stand in for stone walls in the prefabricated village. The family in their pretty little woodland cottage never in any way look like they are starving or living in poverty – a sense of conviction that is even further done in by the casting of perfectly elocuted English David Warner as supposedly a simple-witted but kind-hearted Mittel-European hayseed farmer. As the witch, Cloris Leachman overacts hideously. The fairytale has been so sanitised and cleaned up that all she does is bake children into gingerbread suspended animation instead of attempting to eat them." [1]
Renee Longstreet of Common Sense Media awarded the film two stars out of five. [2]
A mezzo-soprano or mezzo (; Italian:[ˌmɛddzosoˈpraːno]; meaning "half soprano") is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types. The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above (i.e. A3–A5 in scientific pitch notation, where middle C = C4; 220–880 Hz). In the lower and upper extremes, some mezzo-sopranos may extend down to the F below middle C (F3, 175 Hz) and as high as "high C" (C6, 1047 Hz). The mezzo-soprano voice type is generally divided into the coloratura, lyric, and dramatic.
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Cannon Movie Tales is the collective name for a series of live-action films created in the late 1980s by Cannon Group producers Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, associate producer Patricia Ruben, and executive producer Itzik Kol. Filmed principally on location in Israel, these stories are generally fairy tales based on material by either the Brothers Grimm or Charles Perrault, among others. Major stars, from both the United States and the United Kingdom, play the leading roles, in which they are joined by a mostly all-Israeli cast. The major Israeli-born member of the crew was the series' production designer, Marek Dobrowolski. Announced as early as May 1986, Cannon initiated the project as its answer to Disney's fairy-tale offerings, and invested US$50 million in the series. Sixteen stories, each costing US$1.5 million, were originally planned; only nine were released.
Engelbert Humperdinck was a German composer. He is known widely for his opera Hansel and Gretel (1893).
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Margaret Haggart OAM is an Australian operatic soprano and community arts founder based in Melbourne, Australia. Her career spans over 90 operatic, operetta and cabaret roles, performed in the United Kingdom, Italy, France, the United States of America, South America, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia. She is a board member of Melbourne Opera, Green Room Awards and a committee member for the now finished Mietta Song Competition.