Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Character outlines:
Dwarves as seven miniature physicians with expertise in various clinical treatments;
HAPPY: specializes in Botox injections
DOPEY: specializes in breast implants
SLEEPY: specializes in brow lifts
SNEEZY: specializes in collagen injections
BASHFUL: specializes in face lifts
GRUMPY: specializes in cheek implants
DOC: general plastic surgeon akin to “Chief of Staff” role

SNOW WHITE: general heroine and beauty of the story

QUEEN: Evil envier of Snow White

PRINCE: Scandalous paparazzo like reporter with royal credentials

GENERAL PLOT: Snow White is widely know for her beauty and poise throughout the great land. This beauty is brought to the Queen’s attention by the magic mirror which proclaims Snow White to be the greatest beauty of them all. Queen summons Prince to feed her a poison apple for fatal finish. Instead, Prince runs story of the Queen’s evil intentions in tabloid “Kingdom Come” causing Snow White to flee to forest and hide with dwarfs who are responsible for her great beauty. Prince tracks Snow White through “leaks” on her whereabouts from an unknown source often referred to as her publicist.

The Prince unwittingly stumbles on her latest beauty treatments for the week, including botox injections and a brow lift, all supervised by Doc. He falls deeply, madly for the triple-D breast implants Snow White received 6 months before and is forever smitten. The Prince decides the Queen must be dealt with or there will be no peace in the Kingdom. He brings all seven dwarfs to the queen’s castle to “deal” with her. The Queen is never seen again, but a buxom blonde is suddenly emerges, living in the former queen’s castle, luring manly young studs to her window with her golden locks.

Okay, I am quite excited by this challenge, and I think I've come up with an
original, really engaging story treatment. The story I'd rework is
"Sleeping Beauty," which always struck me as not making a whole lot of sense
when I was a kid. I mean, if she (and everyone else in the castle) really
sleeps for 100 years, wouldn't the whole world we radically different when
they all woke up? And how would the king still be the king?
Well, okay, you see my problems with it. But the idea of a lovely young
girl suspended in some kind of half-life--whether real, as in the fairy
story, or metaphorical, as I propose--is pretty compelling. There's also
the idea of the power of love to break people out of their "trances" (again:
real or metaphorical) which I know is probably considered cliche but is
certainly still powerful and central to a lot of stories.

That all said, what I'd write is the story of Jenna J., a beautiful young
woman (I'm updating/modernizing so she's not a princess)who is constantly
sought after by men but just doesn't feel anything, either romantic or
sexual, in return. The story will then add the additional fairy tale
element of something like "Beauty and the Beast" or "The Frog Prince"
because what will happen is that as she struggles with her sense of vague
dissatisfaction and incompleteness despite being so desired, she will
finally notice the one man in her life whom she has always trusted and
respected, her gardener (I'm interested in keeping a bit of the "thorn
hedge" theme in). The gardener, Tom, is not attractive as most of the men
who pursue Jenna are, but he is something more, and very compelling. The
story will achieve its traditional happy ending when Tom prunes back some
rose bushes for Jenna and cuts himself doing it. She takes his hand to wipe
the blood and . . . well, I'll leave you with what I think is a good image,
one I will flesh out in the story itself.

Retired detective Aloysius Crimb receives an invitation to visit the palatial estate of his former college roommate Bart Prince. Their lives and careers have followed wildly divergent trajectories (Prince having risen to become the head of an international business empire controlling high-end jewelry, liquor and chocolate brands [extensive discussion and commentary on the marketing of luxury products will be intertwined with the exposition of his backstory], while Crimb's exploits have been well-documented in my as-yet-unpublished trilogy, currently being considered by Harper Collins under the titles "Murder in the Morning"/"Murder in the Evening"/"Murder at Suppertime"), but the two men have similar analytical mindsets and cautious outlooks, and are frequently mis-characterized by acquaintances as paranoid.

Prince's manse is rigged with the most advanced security systems that money can buy, and his hidden motive in inviting Crimb is to ask for his assistance in inspecting these precautions. Prince has become increasingly convinced that one of his three beautiful, impetuous daughters (each of whom has a different mother, all of whom live on the grounds of the estate) is trying to arrange his death in order to claim her share of his fortune. He is loath to disinherit any of them, since he is a great believer in the value of his own contribution to the gene pool, and since he still has a great deal of difficulty in telling them apart.

Within a week of Crimb's arrival, Prince is found murdered in the panic room at the center of the most secure part of the house. Crimb undertakes an investigation which is plagued with false starts. The central conundrum is the question of how the killer was able to locate the two critical wires, cleverly concealed behind the frame of an original Fragonard oil, that were cut in order to deactivate the magnetic lock. Finally, inspired by a serendipitous conversation with the ancient and salty majordomo, Crimb realizes that only an individual with unusually accute hearing, particularly sensitive to high-frequency sounds, would be able to detect these wires by listening carefully for their telltale buzzing.

He then arranges a trap for the killer whereby a speaker is secreted in each of the three daughters' bedrooms, and an ultrasonic tone is played at high volume through all three speakers all night. The next morning, only the youngest daughter Priscilla complains of the high-pitched whining noise, like the sound of a gnat in her ear, which disturbed her sleep all night. Crimb confronts her with the evidence of her guilt, and she confesses and is led away in shackles.