- A young department store intern falls in love with a female store mannequin who is really a peasant girl fallen under a thousand year spell. She comes to life whenever he removes the cursed necklace from her.
- The flamboyant Hollywood Montrose is promoted to head window dresser at Prince and Company department store. Hollywood hires his new assistant Jason Williamson, who in a past life was the prince of the Hauptmann-Koenig kingdom. Prince and Company plans to display a mannequin known as the Enchanted Peasant Girl in celebration of the kingdom. And Jason has a nagging feeling he has seen this mannequin somewhere before. Removing a necklace from the mannequin reveals that the Enchanted Peasant Girl is really Jessie, the love of his past life who was placed under a thousand year spell by an evil sorcerer. Their rekindled romance is not without its challenges when the evil sorcerer reappears in his descendant Count Gunther Spretzle, who has plans of his own for Jessie. But Jessie must receive a kiss from her one true love to break free from the curse before Count Spretzle finds her.—MGM/UA Home Video
- A thousand years ago in the not-so-impressive fictitious kingdom of Hauptmann-Koenig, the dashing Prince William fell in love with a lovely peasant girl, Jessie (Kristy Swanson). However, his royal mother was less than thrilled with their romance and plotted with her court magician to destroy this. Together, they deceived William into giving Jessie a cursed necklace. The necklace transforms Jessie into a wooden statue for a thousand years or until her true love from another land could remove the necklace; whatever came first.
Nearly a thousand years later, Jessie has become a cultural icon known as the Enchanted Peasant Girl in Hauptmann-Koenig (now a village in Germany). In a vain attempt to boost tourism in their country, the royal family has sent their mannequin of the Enchanted Peasant Girl to the United States to tour at the Prince & Company department store in Philadelphia's Center City. Secretly, Count Gunther Spretzle (Terry Kiser), the present-day descendant of the court magician is plotting to take the medieval girl once the thousand year curse is over and she becomes alive as his bride; along with the royal jewels being loaned to Prince & Company to fund his retirement to Bermuda.
As a public relations move, the flamboyant and newly promoted Hollywood Montrose (Meshach Taylor) is assigned the task of conducting an artistic presentation celebrating Hauptmann-Koenig. Prince & Company's fussbudget manager, Mr. James (Stuart Pankin) has assigned a new intern, Jason Williamson (William Ragsdale) to help as Hollywood's assistant. A hopeless romantic, Jason falls head over heels with a promotional picture of the beautiful mannequin. Shortly afterwards, he and Hollywood learn that the delivery truck with the artifacts shipped from Hauptmann-Koenig has been in an accident. Driving out of the scene, Jason sees a female figure falling into the Schuylkill River from the truck and impulsively jumps in to save her only to belatedly discover that it was merely the mannequin.
Taking the Enchanted Peasant Girl back to Prince & Company, Jason tries to clean it up and by chance removes the necklace which breaks the spell and restores Jessie back to life. Jessie immediately fixates on Jason who is the reincarnation of Prince William and they began a whirlwind overnight romance on the streets of the city. Unfortunately, the next morning, Jessie redons the necklace which transforms her back into a mannequin leaving Jason heartbroken and unaware of how she returned to life, much less how to bring her back. Unsure of what to do, Jason takes the mannequin Jessie back to Prince & Company where Count Spretzle arrives to take charge of security.
Hollywood sends off Jason to do some errands and admiring Jessie's necklace, takes it off and tries it on himself which turns him into a mannequin. Restored back to life, the confused Jessie tours the department store in an attempt to find Jason. Meanwhile, Count Spretzle's three henchmen have come to guard the girl and find only the statue of Hollywood with the necklace and removes it to reprimand him. However, Hollywood remains too bewildered and confused afterwards by his transformation to understand what just happened. The trio belatedly realize that the mannequin is missing and rush out to find her. The three henchmen stumble across the alive Jessie who recognizes them and runs away to their stunned amazement.
Meanwhile, Jason finds the still confused Hollywood who he proceeds to confess about Jessie coming to life and his and Jessie's date last night. Much to Jason's surprise, Hollywood believes him having experienced this before and they immediately find her.
Spretzle is dismayed when his henchmen inform him that the girl is not only alive but someone has removed the necklace. Spotting Jason, he recognizes him as a reborn Prince William and attempts to have his nemesis eliminated. Pursued by the three henchmen, Jessie is forced to escape and takes refuge at Jason's home where unfortunately Spretzle has tracked her down and forces the necklace back on her, turning her back into a mannequin. Afterwards, Spretzle accuses Jason of trying to steal his country's property and when Jason tries to defend himself, his claims of Jessie coming to life is immediately dismissed by the police who arrest him. However, he sees the necklace back on Jessie and realizes that this is the source of the curse but is unable to convince anyone to remove the necklace.
After spending the night in lockup, Hollywood masquerades himself as a Marine Staff Sergeant and manages to bluff the policemen into releasing Jason into his custody so that he can be court martialed. Sneaking back into Prince & Company, in the middle of the presentation, Jason openly removes the cursed necklace, restoring Jessie to life in front of hundreds of spectators. Enraged, Spretzle kidnaps Jessie and escapes in a hot air balloon. Jason manages to grab onto a rope attached to the basket and they struggle when Jessie picks up the necklace and inspired, puts it on Spretzle turning him into a mannequin. Both Jason and Jessie tearfully embrace and by chance knock over the statue of Spretzle out of the basket where it falls into the pavement, smashing it into pieces.
Back in Hauptmann-Koenig, the badly glued together mannequin of Count Spretzle is now the centerpiece and the new cultural icon of the country. Meanwhile, the newly married couple of Jason and Jessie depart from Prince & Company on their honeymoon.
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By what name was Mannequin: On the Move (1991) officially released in India in English?
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