Snow White and The Three Stooges/Analysis
This movie stands as a textbook case of misusing a good cast. The film had two leads who were simply not used properly.
The film originally started as a vehicle for Carol Heiss, who was a recent Olympic Gold Medalist in figure skating. This was an attempt by Twentieth Century Fox to make her the next Sonja Henie (who had made a number of successful films for the studio a couple of decades before).
Unfortunately, they forgot that Sonja's films were mainly tailored made to show off her skating. This film was taking the plot of "Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs" but did not alter the plot to fit the skating. Thus, the skating seemed just thrown in. Worse, Carol had no acting experience, and this was giving her a major role. Henie's earlier films kept her roles smaller than this.
Once the studio realized that Carol couldn't carry the film as it was, they could have rewritten the film to fit the skating and not relied on her acting. But they didn't want to go that far, so they tried to compensate with one of the most brazen acts of Stunt Casting in film history. They brought in The Three Stooges to take the place of the seven dwarfs.
That could have worked, but they still didn't rewrite the script, and while the Stooges had a lot of screen time, it started late in the film, and had barely any Slapstick. You read that right. A trio whose career was based on slapstick, had almost none. Not to mention being called upon to do some serious pathos, for which the Stooges were clearly unsuited. This is why the film was turned from a decent, if passible, film into something loathed by their fans.
- Back to Snow White and The Three Stooges