SUSIE Brooks-Smith has spent endless days during the school holidays taking her children to the latest U film.

Sometimes she enjoyed the film, on occasions she took joy in watching her children laughing at the characters on the screen, but often, and more often than not, she felt that the film was not up to scratch.

"I have had to sit through endless drivel as a parent. I have my own children and step-children, so I have had 25 years of taking children to the most ghastly drivel that I have ever watched. The one thing I know about children and their parents is that they hate being patronised. I think lately movies have been talking down to children.

"I think people underestimate family viewing. When you take the children out for a pizza afterwards, they talk about the bits they liked the most. Parents shouldn't feel they have thrown their £5 down the drain. More and more films are isolating. You have films for teenagers and films for adults I like family viewing."

Unlike many parents, Susie, from Stoke Talmage near Wattlington, could do something about it. Susie is a film producer.

She met up with American film writer/director Edouard Nammour who she had worked with on a Ford commercial. He had written a fantasy script about a tooth fairy Susie loved the idea.

"One night over dinner in London, Ed pitched this idea to me. It captivated my imagination, so I forced him to write a short outline of it.

"No one has really touched the tooth fairy. We have had a lot of Father Christmases, but the tooth fairy has never really been exploited."

Edouard says: "The idea just sort of sprang up about three years ago. It just struck me as a really wonderful idea that a lot of people would have fun watching in story form. It is really taking a lot of fairy tale ideas and turning them on their head."

Tooth tells the story of a young, feisty Tooth Fairy, who lives in a world called Fairytopia that has lost its ability to use magic. Fed up with the way most fairies have forgotten about magic, she decides to give away all of its money and bankrupt her world, two days before Christmas.

When Tooth discovers how much trouble she is in, she realises the only person who can help is the legendary Mrs Santa Claus, who disappeared, along with magic, more than 100 years ago.

Teaming up with two human children and a number of fairies, who are living incognito among humans, she sets off on the adventure of a lifetime. Pursued by the evil Plug a terrifying fairy hunter and his posse the race is on to save the world before Christmas, Easter and all the holidays are ruined forever.

Once the script had been written, Susie approached her children to find out what they thought of it.

"If you have a market place then use it. At times I would have about 30 to 40 kids around the table. I gave them the script and asked for a crit. They told me where they found it dull and where they found it funny."

With a tight budget of £13 million, the next step was finding the cast. She found Tom. He is played by 12-year-old Rory Copus, from Marlow who goes to Jackie Palmer Stage School.

Marylyn Phillips, director of the stage school, says: "He is a very talented boy and very good at doing accents. He plays an American boy in Tooth but he is very R.P. received pronunciation he can switch very easily."

Although Tooth is Rory's cinematic debut he will be seen in the blockbuster Hellboy later this year and Midsomer Murders in which he takes on the lead role. He has already been seen on the small screen in Goodbye Mr Chips, Holby City, Curriculum Bites and he played David in I am David on BBC Radio and the young Duke of York in Richard III. On stage, he has acted in All My Sons and Remembrance at the Royal National Theatre and One for the Road which he took on tour to New York.

Yasmin Paige takes on the lead role of Tooth.

Then Susie added a galaxy of stars for all the adult roles including Harry Enfield, Stephen Fry, Jim Broadbent, Tim Dutton, Sally Phillips, Jerry Hall, Richard E Grant, Phyllida Law and hard man Vinnie Jones.

"Vinnie Jones was one of the maddest bits of casting that we all enjoyed," chuckles Susie. "Seeing him turn from hard man/ torturer to a tooth fairy."

Filming took place in and around Pinewood during the summer of 2003. All the locations were filmed locally including one in Gerrards Cross where they filmed Jerry Hall.

"We filmed in Gerrards Cross because it has the most beautiful rolling hills. We have a scene where the fairies come over the hills on five scary Yamaha bikes."

So has Susie made a movie she can enjoy with her children?

"This is not an art house movie. We had fun making it. I love to see a middle-of-the-road movie where I can laugh or cry and then walk out of the cinema feeling emotionally satisfied, having had a good laugh or a good scare. So I think I am Mrs Average audience."

Tooth is at cinemas now