Pelle without tail
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Pelle without tail |
| Original title | Pelle Svanslös |
| Country of production | Sweden |
| original language | Swedish |
| Publishing year | 1981 |
| length | 81 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Jan Gissberg Stig Lasseby |
| script | Leif Krantz |
| music | Berndt Egerbladh |
| camera | Eberhard Fehmers |
Pelle Ohneschwanz , alternative title Kater Schwanzlos , is a Swedish cartoon by Jan Gissberg and Stig Lasseby from 1981. It is based on a series of children's books by Gösta Knutsson .
action
Five kittens are born on a farm. However, the owner only wants to keep one cat, other kittens are adopted in the area and in the end all that remains is a black and white tom, who also has only one stubby tail. The foreman is supposed to drown the cat, but at that moment a vacationer from town appears. The foreman smuggles the cat into his car. This is how he reaches Uppsala and is finally taken in by the vacationer's family. Daughter Birgitta in particular has taken the cat into her heart and named it Pelle. Pelle is given a bow tie around his neck and a cap on his head. So one day Birgitta takes him on an excursion where Pelle is being chased by a bulldog . He escapes to a dilapidated backyard, where he meets the mean cat Mike Mäuseschreck and his two henchmen Bill and Bull. Mike makes fun of Pelle's missing cock.
The beautiful cat Molly Sahnenase appears in the yard and Pelle is fascinated by her. Mike tries to trick him, claiming that Molly likes love songs. In the evening Pelle appears in front of her window and begins to sing. He doesn't know that the owners of Molly get angry at " cat music ". Molly, however, warns him in good time and invites him to dinner. Mike, who believes Pelle has been punished for his singing, now appears in front of Molly's window shouting and is chased away and splashed wet by her angry owners. Angry at Pelle, Mike calls a citywide gathering of cats. He claims that as a country cat, Pelle makes fun of the city cats because he thinks he is much smarter. At Mike's initiative, the cats decide to teach Pelle a lesson.
A little later, Pelle receives an exclusive invitation to the cats' annual spring dance. When dancing, he is clumsy and is mocked by Mike. He sadly withdraws and meets a snake here that is so knotted that it threatens to suffocate. Pelle saves her and the snake promises to help him too. A little later, a quiz is held at the dance festival in which Mike reads arithmetic problems, whereby the cats have to shape the result as a shadow play with their tails. Although Mike has given all participants the answers to the simple tasks in advance, almost all cats fail. Pelle, in turn, is given a very difficult math problem. He can solve it, but cannot show it without a tail. The snake rushes to his aid, forms the solution and Pelle wins. Mike tries to discredit Pelle with his family and destroys a birthday cake that was meant for Birgitta's brother. Pelle is held responsible for the damage and locked in the laundry room as a punishment. Here the family left the iron on; At night it starts to burn and Pelle saves the family by meowing. He receives a medal for bravery and an extra large piece of cake.
Mike is unimpressed by the medal, as in the end only one gold medal at the Cat Olympics counts. Pelle is sad because he has no idea that Mike just made up these Olympics. Mike organizes the event where he wins in all disciplines by cheating. His cheating is revealed in the end and Mike is disqualified while Pelle receives the gold medal and finally wins Molly's heart. Shortly afterwards, during an angry speech in front of the cats, Mike demands that all country cats be expelled from the city. This is accepted reluctantly. The cats ambush Pelle and Mike sets the bulldog on him. However, Pelle has noticed that the cat Frida's child has climbed onto scaffolding and is in danger. Despite attacks from the bulldog, Pelle manages to save the kitten at risk of death. The Bulldog ends up chasing after Mike, Bill, and Bull. Pelle is celebrated by the cats and accepted into the city cat community. However, he will spend the summer months with his family in the country and the foreman is pleased to see him again.
production
Pelle Ohneschwanz is based on various stories from the children's book series about Pelle Svanslös by Gösta Knutsson, which was published from 1939. Screenwriter Leif Krantz also added characters that do not exist in the books, such as the snake and the evil bulldog. It was the first feature film about the cat Pelle, which was continued in 1985 with Pelle on a long journey . Work on the cartoon, which consists of 80,000 individual drawings, began in 1978. It was Jan Gissberg's first long film direction. Several Scandinavian film companies and studios were involved in the production of the film, including: Film-Labor , Sandrews , Svenska Filminstitutet (SFI) , Teamfilm AS and Treklövern .
In the Swedish original, the characters were spoken by actors such as Ewa Froling , Ernst-Hugo Järegård , Björn Gustafson and Eddie Axberg .
Pelle Ohneschwanz was released in Swedish cinemas on December 25, 1981 and was also released in German cinemas on December 3, 1982. The television of the GDR showed the film on December 24, 1985 on DFF 1 . The film was first shown on Swedish television in August 1997. Pelle Ohneschwanz was released on video in Germany in January 1997 and was also released on DVD in May 2005; in October 2000 the film was released on DVD in Sweden.
criticism
The film service called Pelle Ohneschwanz a “cartoon that, after a funny and poetic beginning, slips into genre clichés.” “Fun for the very young,” summarized Cinema .
Awards
The film received a retroactive grant from the Swedish Film Institute in 1982 as a kvalitetsbidrag (quality contribution). At the film festival in Manila won Pelle Without tail 1983 Children's Film Award.
Web links
- Pelle Without tail in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Information on film from the Swedish Film Institute