Our idea

So after throwing around a  few ideas about what sort of fairy tale we would like to subvert we settled on Rumple stilt skin. It seems to have some of the story conventions of a films noir e.g lying deceit, trouble, threat of murder bargains you cannot fill. We have decided to brainstorm how we can turn some of the characters in this folk tale into below the law film noir characters.

The central characters in this story are

The father-  The father is a miller with a beautiful daughter. He had to go and speak with the king and wanted to seem important. So for some reason he thought it would be a good idea to tell the king that his daughter could spin straw into gold. A bit of an idiot if you ask me considering she couldn't.

The king- Some greedy guy who wanted to girl to spin straw into cold. he imprisoned her in a room full of straw and a spinning wheel and told her to spin it into gold. If she doesn't he will kill her. After her third night of 'succeeding' he decides that he will marry her... Wow lucky her.

Daughter- The unknowing victim of her fathers bragging gets thrown into this situation. She can't in fact spin hay onto gold. She acquires help from Rumplestiltskin for the three nights she has to do this, giving him her possessions and promising him her first born child, however getting out of this offer in the end.  She ends up marrying the king.

Rumplestiltskin- He helps the Millers daughter spin yarn into gold. He is promised her first born child when she becomes queen. She cries and protests about this and he tells her she can get out of the deal by guessing his name. When she hears his name from a servant and tells him he gets so frustrated he literally tears himself in two.

So our side of how to turn this nutso fairy tale into something that you would call a film noir:

The King- The Leader of a mass fake money producing and assassination organisation. She is greedy and loves the idea of turning paper into money. She is very rich and runs a successful business. She however. She pays assassins (real money) to assassinate anyone who knows too much about their illegal money business.

The father- One of the workers at the mass fake money business. She is at a bar one night and gets drunk spilling all the secrets of the organisation to an officer who is having a drink. When the 'king' finds out about this she finds the father unrelaiable and has her assassinated.

Rumplestiltskin- This is the officer who hears this. She decides to go and work undercover at the illegal money business to investigate them and get to the bottom of the legal things they are doing. Unfortunately things become quite complicated.

The daughter- She is very high up in the illegal money and assassination organisation, she is in charge of overseeing the production of the money and has lots of power in the underground business. When the undercover officer comes to investigate she is impressed by her outgoing personality and her unwillingness to back down and gain access to information. The two become very good friends.

Thing get further complicated from here. The 'King' who knows an officer when she senses one recognises 'rumplestiltskin' immediately as someone who is working undercover. She immediately informs 'that daughter' that she must assassinate her as she has her trust. She offers her a large sum of money for the assasination. The problem is the 'daughter' doesn't really want to because they have become such good friends.

The daughter corners 'rmplestiltskin' and is about to shoot her when she realises that she cannot do it, the 'king' who is too furiously greedy to ever let anyone find out about her illegal business is watching her do it. Seeing that she cannot she comes up behind the 'daughter' and shoots rumplestiltskin with her own hand. The daughter is devastated but the king tells her it is all part of the business and being successful.

We have used some of the character ideas from the film noir ingredient list.

The private investigator is the character of rumplestiltskin.

The king and daughter are both femme fatals

the father is the informant who is murdered as she is unreliable

rumplestiltskin is a nosy character

We are using the idea of both crime and murder

greed and jealousy is the motivation of the 'king'

There are also a number of suspicious characters who have motivations or motives concenred with the crime