Cinema: Peasant Girl Who Stole a Horse Weds a Prince

Once upon a time there was a prince with dark, flashing eyes and teeth whiter than white, as handsome as, say, Omar Sharif. He didn’t like any of the seven marriageable princesses whom his mother had lined up for him; in fact, he didn’t really like much of anything except riding his high-spirited white horse. One day, while cantering across the meadows, his horse threw him and galloped off. When the prince finally caught up with the horse—with the help of a flying monk—it had been appropriated by a peasant girl of such deep dark beauty that you’d swear she was Sophia Loren.

Now the girl did not want to give up the horse, but the prince knew just what to do. He had her publicly nailed up in a barrel, which the townspeople rolled right out into the river. Eventually some boys found it on the beach, opened it up, and there was the girl, as pretty as ever and, by now, head over heels in love with the prince. So she got a job in the palace kitchen making omelets—which became somewhat com plicated after some witches showed up and hexed 3,000 eggs into hatching.

Meanwhile, the prince’s mother was pestering her son day and night about when the wedding was going to be. Obedient son as he was, he agreed to make up his mind within a week. Soon, though, the prince decided that he was really in love with the girl. But they couldn’t just get married like that, with those seven princesses waiting around, so the prince cleverly decided to organize a dishwashing contest, the winner to get his hand. Naturally, most of the princesses fainted dead away at the sight of all those dirty dishes, except for one evil and efficient type with a gift for sabotage, who finally won—but only temporarily, of course.

And that is what happens in an utterly mindless but totally endearing fairy tale, starring Omar Sharif as the prince and Sophia Loren as the girl. It was directed by Francesco Rosi, who is best known for his harrowing bullfight epic, The Moment of Truth. That anybody would bother these days to make so slender and fanciful a film is a miracle in itself; to do it with such a profusion of visual beauty is More than a Miracle. Which, by the way, is its title.