The Nutcracker Prince

In 19th century Germany, Clara Stahlbaum, her younger brother Fritz and their family celebrate Christmas Eve, though Clara is jealous that her older sister Louise already has a boyfriend, leaving her wondering about growing up. She immediately cheers up when Drosselmeier, an eccentric toymaker and family friend, arrives at their home with special gifts: a fully automated toy castle for everyone, and a Nutcracker for Clara. While trying to crack nuts with it, Fritz damages the Nutcracker. To cheer the heartbroken Clara up, Drosselmeier tells her a story about how the Nutcracker came to be the Prince of the Dolls.

As Drosselmeier relates, there were a King and a Queen who had a beautiful but vain daughter named Pirlipat. To celebrate the King's birthday, the Queen made a special cake out of blue cheese, but the scent of the cheese drew out all the castle mice, who ate and destroyed the cake. Enraged at it, the King commanded Drosselmeier, his inventor, to capture all the mice; Drosselmeier and his nephew, Hans, succeeded, but the Mouse Queen and her son escaped. In revenge, the Mouse Queen cast a spell on Pirlipat, causing her to become hideously ugly, and Drosselmeier was given the task of figuring out how to cure her. He eventually learned that the fabled Krakatooth Nut could cure her, and the King commanded all the princes and noblemen in the realm to apply, with the promise of marriage to Pirlipat once she was cured. However, the Krakatooth was so hard that all the men's teeth shattered upon trying to crack it. Drosselmeier was about to be executed for his failure when Hans stepped in and cracked the nut, thus curing Pirlipat. Furious, the Mouse Queen cast a spell on Hans, turning him into a Nutcracker. During the subsequent ruckus, she was killed by a falling statue, and her son's tail was damaged. Now free of his domineering mother, he made himself King of the Mice and swore revenge on Hans, while Drosselmeier was exiled by the ungrateful King.

Clara is upset by the story's ending, but Drosselmeier tells her that the Nutcracker will break his curse if he can defeat the Mouse King. In the middle of the night, Clara returns to the living room to spend time with the Nutcracker, when suddenly the Mouse King and an army of mice appear. A ghostly apparition of Drosselmeier also arrives and casts a spell that breathes life into all the dolls, including the Nutcracker, Marie, Trudy and the toy soldier Pantaloon. The two parties engage in battle, in which course the Mouse King threatens to kill the Nutcracker. Clara prevents this by throwing her slipper at the Mouse King, but then slips on a toy cannonball, falls backwards and hits her head, losing consciousness. The next morning, while she recovers, Drosselmeier comes visiting. Clara accuses him of putting the Nutcracker - his enchanted nephew - in danger, but Drosselmeier explains that only Clara can help him break the curse.

That night, the Mouse King returns, angry about Clara's interference. Clara briefly traps him within her bedside table drawer, but when she retrieves the Nutcracker, the Mouse King escapes and threatens to harm her kitten, Pavlova, if she doesn't hand the Nutcracker over. Drosselmeier reappears, and the toys awaken once more. The Nutcracker faces the Mouse King in single combat and defeats him, but Pantaloon is damaged while trying to help him. In order to get him cured, Nutcracker, Trudy and Marie prepare to travel to the Land of the Dolls through Drosselmeier's mechanical castle; Clara accompanies them after Drosselmeier magically shrinks her. However, the Mouse King, though critically wounded, has survived the duel and pursues them.

Arriving at the royal castle of the Land of the Dolls, Clara is given a grand welcome, but although she has fallen in love with the Nutcracker, she hesitates in joining him as his princess. Her reluctance negates the spell which animated the dolls, and they revert to lifeless toys. The Mouse King appears and goes after Clara with his dying strength, but ends up falling off the castle's balcony and drowning in the lake below. As Clara begins crying for the Nutcracker, mist begins to fill the castle, and she abruptly finds herself back home and the Nutcracker missing. Clara rushes to Drosselmeier's workshop, where she anxiously asks him about whether all what she has gone through was real, when they are joined by Hans, now cured of his curse and back to human form.

• Kiefer Sutherland - Prince Hans/The Nutcracker
• Megan Follows - Clara Stahlbaum
• Peter Boretski - Elias Christian Drosselmeier
• Phyllis Diller - The Mouse Queen
• Mike MacDonald - The Mouse King
• Peter O'Toole - Pantaloon
• Lynne Gorman - Trudy
• George Merner - Dr. Stahlbaum
• Stephanie Morgenstern - Louise Stahlbaum
• Christopher Owens - Erik
• Diane Stapley - Mrs. Ingrid Stahlbaum
• Mona Waserman - Princess Perlipat
• Noam Zylberman - Fritz Stahlbaum

The film had received negative reviews from critics.[13]

Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times was critical of the film, calling it "innocuous." "The level of imagination in the story is about as inventive as on most Saturday morning cartoon shows." He also panned the characterization of the Nutcracker as a "monster." "In the real world, when a person is so lacking in empathy that he kills someone else simply for his own convenience, he is known as a psychopath. Why does our society give its children so many stories in which the heroes, not the villains, are psychopaths?"[14]

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 14%.[15]

• The Nutcracker and the Mouse King
• The Nutcracker
• Canadian animation

• The Nutcracker Prince at IMDb
• The Nutcracker Prince at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Nutcracker Prince at AllMovie
• The Nutcracker Prince at The Big Cartoon DataBase
• The Nutcracker Prince at Box Office Mojo
• The Nutcracker Prince at Keyframe - the Animation Resource
• TV Spot posted by Night of the Trailers on YouTube