Our first day in our new house is filled with dull cleaning and unpacking, so what better way to keep my spirits high than to watch a jaunty Christmas movie about a country singer rescuing seven runaway orphans from an evil witch? Yes, it’s A Smoky Mountain Christmas with Dolly Parton in a reimagining of ‘Snow White’...at Christmas, a film that was surely thought up by country-lovin’ lunatics. Oh, and it’s directed by the Fonz himself, Henry Winkler.
This one starts seemingly normal enough with Parton as country superstar Lorna shooting a very ‘80s music video filled with lots of big, big hair. We quickly learn that she’s disillusioned with her career and tormented by Dan Hedaya’s sleazy paparazzi guy.
Lorna ups sticks and heads to a rustic cabin in the Tennessee Smoky Mountains for the holidays to get back to basics and reclaim her mojo. When she arrives it’s as though she’s suddenly driven into a completely different movie. Discovering seven orphans snoozing in the cabin, it all soon goes very ‘Snow White’ with a plot involving a witch and a poisoned apple (pie).
Lorna decides the orphans are cool to stay as long as they agree to keep her secrets and help her maintain a low profile. All the while, the crooked town sheriff (Bo Hopkins) is trying to catch them, under the direction of his lover Zezebel (Anita Morris), a mountain witch who wants the kids carted off by social services. Lee Majors appears as a rugged mountain man on the side of the goodies.
It’s an odd mixture of fantasy and reality all tied together by big country songs. Your enjoyment of this one will depend completely on your tolerance for Dolly’s music. I’m not a big fan so this is a real chore and I only really half-watch it while scrubbing the walls of my new bedroom that was previously inhabited by someone who must have smoked about 100 fags a day. Yuck.
The film is mildly charming in a dumb sort of ‘what were they thinking’ kind of way and the Christmassy song at the film’s climax is pretty nice, a countrified version of ‘Jingle Bells’ that cheers me up a bit.
It’s an incredibly ‘80s film, filled with poofy big hair, crazy long acrylic nails and, of course, Dolly being Dolly in all her colourful, sequined glory. Honestly, for this film’s target audience, this is probably a stone cold classic and it’s just sitting there on Youtube if that sounds like your bag. Don’t let me stop you.
Comments