Red Riding Hood Fights Back

Red Riding Hood with her father.

Red Riding Hood with her father.

In the East German (DEFA) 1962 fairy tale film Little Red Riding Hood (Rotkäppchen, dir. Götz Friedrich), we meet some of Red Riding Hood’s friends – and enemies. Her best pals are the ever-worried Rabbit and the clumsy and rather childish Bear. The Big Bad Wolf finds a partner in crime, Fox, both of whom are out to get Red Riding Hood and co.

3 friends: Red Riding Hood, Bear and Rabbit

3 friends: Red Riding Hood, Bear and Rabbit

As in the original story, Red Riding Hood must bring Grandmother a basket – no wine this time, but rather a healthy pail of milk, some bread, and the time-honored remedy for colds, a bit off snuff. While the three friends stray from the path and play around, Bear accidentally knocks over the pail of milk. No problem – Rabbit runs home to bring a new pail of milk, only to return and find Bear and Red Riding Hood leaving the path for the forest again. The wily Fox has tricked Bear to go in search of honey, while Red Riding Hood goes to pick mushrooms for Grandmother. Rabbit’s hand-wringing and begging earns him Red Riding Hood’s anger, telling him not to be a Hasenfuß (a scaredy cat; literally, a rabbit’s foot).

Red Riding Hood has chased away the evil Fox.

Red Riding Hood has chased away the evil Fox.

Predictably, it is a set-up: Fox and Wolf attack her, but they are no longer working together: Wolf hits Fox over the head with a stick and turns to snatch the girl, but Red Riding Hood has outsmarted him. She blows a handful of snuff in his face. He then sneezes so much that he must crawl away, with Red Riding Hood throwing stones after him. Fox has meanwhile finished off the rest of the basket’s goodies, but the exhausted Red Riding Hood is gleeful – she has outsmarted Wolf and does a little victory dance.

The jarring part of this scene is Red Riding Hood’s anger. She throws the stones not only to scare away Fox, but to hit him, that is, to hurt him. The fight has left her with dirt smeared on her face, her clothes disheveled, and a look of hatred that the camera captures in a close-up. What is the purpose of showing this new side of Red Riding Hood? She has defeated Fox, but the traditional fairy tale lesson is lost, since she once again wanders into the forest, allowing Wolf time to beat her to Grandmother’s. It is a turning point that is not really a turning point.

In a film that is otherwise careful to avoid outright violence (her hunter-father carries Wolf away to a place where he can do no more harm, his hunting rifle unused), Red Riding Hood’s reaction suggests a different kind of moral. Perhaps she will keep her promise to never stray from the path again, perhaps not. What is certain, though, is that the next time she encounters an evil-doer, she will know how to take care of herself.

 

Nazi Fairy Tale Films

The phrase “Nazi fairy tale films” seems like either a bad joke, or else yet another area that Nazis turned into propaganda. Yet, Nazi film adaptations of the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales represent important examples of children’s films in cinematic and educational history. Although the film industry in Nazi Germany came under the purview of Josef Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda, he stated explicitly that children’s films should be free of Nazi symbols and ideology. It is time to lift the taboo of freely discussing Nazi filmmaking beyond the well-known overtly anti-Semitic and nationalistic films. After all, in 1940 alone, German film companies produced nine 35 mm feature films based on fairy tales, seven of them Brothers Grimm adaptations – almost half of the total nineteen fairy tale films intended for the Big Screen in Nazi Germany made between 1935 and 1944. From Puss in Boots to Red Riding Hood, Nazi fairy tale films offer us a unique glimpse into the values of good vs. evil that the Big Screen presented young cinema-goers – values that cannot be reduced to stereotypical Nazi slogans of the supremacy of the German race.

These films are not easy to come by, with rare exception, but I think this lack of access to films is part of the problem. What happens if Nazi fairy tale films were remastered as DVDs and made available through, for instance, the Goethe Institute or the German Center for Political Education – as many East German iconic films are? They would then become part of a clear socio-political framework that would situate them within German and cinema history. More important, they would not remain such a Big Secret, and more scholars than the few now writing about them could offer more interpretations than currently available.

Rumpelstiltskin, 1940

Rumpelstiltskin, 1940 

Let me give a small taste of some of these films, which I will be discussing in the weeks that come: Let’s start with the delightful Puss in Boots (Der gestiefelte Kater, dir. Alf Zengerling, 1935), which demonstrates the director’s successful transition from puppet films to live action films mixed in with the occasional costumed animal character and odd documentary film footage of animals (the lion jump cut is a bit odd, but the film still rates as one of my all-time favorites). And of course there is Red Riding Hood (Rotkäppchen, dir. Fritz Genschow and Renee Stobrawawhich, 1937), which smacks of Wizard of Oz (dir. Victor Fleming, 1939) Dorothy-in-Kansas reality (b/w) and dreams (bold color) of the fantasy world. Unfortunately, Red Riding Hood’s Nazi-era hunter is decked out in Nazi gear or else I would recommend it for any family film evening… maybe a bit of Film-Photo-Shopping could rescue it. Then there is The Rabbit and the Hedgehog (Der Hase und der Igel, dir. Alf Zengerling, 1940), interestingly particularly for the rabbit character, played by Paul Walker – a world-renowned actor of diminutive stature who, with Zengerling, managed to make a living in Nazi-era filmmaking, including starring in such classics as Rumpelstilskin (pictured above with the farmer’s daughter and the instruction to turn straw into gold, 1940). I lose trace of Walker after his last films in the 1940s – reason enough to open up the files and film-reel canisters and release Hitler’s celluloid princes, princesses, and all of their subjects to some scholarly scrutiny today.