Travelling back to 1944, that most childlike of years, we find once again a literary origin for the next franchise down the pike. Swedish author Astrid Lindgren, beset by the double horrors of World War II and being Swedish, fashioned a get-well story for her nine-year-old daughter Karin. Thus Pippi Longstocking was born, a children’s literary hero renowned for her superhuman horse-lifting strength, red hair, and a healthy disregard for all adults everywhere. Lindgren’s first published “Pippi” novel, 1945’s “Pippi Longstocking,” is on record as the first ever joyous thing to ever come out of Sweden.
All told, Lindgren published three “Pippi” novels, released as a salve to freshly de-Hitlered post-war Europe. On top of “Pippi Longstocking,” we also have “Pippi Goes on Board” and “Pippi in the South Seas,” released in 1946 and ’48, respectively. And so here at long last was the tonic needed to stave off war for the rest of human history.
With any popular novel, particularly one beloved by children and acclaimed by snobby bookish societies, it didn’t take long for “Pippi Longstocking” to become Pippi Longstocking – 1949. This Swedish production was done with no approval (or even copyright) from Lindgren, and by all accounts it sucks…It is not what we’re here to discuss today.
The “Pippi” name lingered cinematically terms until 1961, when American TV program [shudder!] “Shirley Temple’s Storybook” did a thirteen episode run readapting the first novel. Sparing all of mankind most extreme horror, the dreaded Shirley Temple bowed out of playing Pippi, in favor of Gina Gillespie. Maintaining a Swedish “pedigree,” and awesomely conjuring up memories of Ed Wood, mentally-challenged wrestler Tor Johnson was there too!...It is not what we’re here to discuss today.
Nope, what we are here for is the 1969 version, produced back in Sweden, with Lindgren’s direct involvement (she wrote the scripts for this new series). And this fresh “Pippi Longstocking” I am set to discuss was…was…was a TV series. Now, hold up! This blog isn’t about discussing television, let alone Swedish television from the ‘60s! Just relax for a minute, will ya, and it’ll all become clear.
The 1969 “Pippi Longstocking” was a Swedish/German coproduction (the good Germans, the West Germans) done for Sveriges Radio TV and the communistic, state-run monopoly TV station Swedish SVT! And boy!, nothin’ says childlike innocence and glee quite like a German commie coproduction! Still, the program was popular, and is surely the most whimsical bit of programming to issue forth from Sweden since Ingmar Bergman literalized a metaphor to question God’s magnanimity.
Okay, but where’s the movie?! Well, that’d have to wait until 1973 (or 1974 or 1975, depending upon which source I go with – Yeesh it’s confused!). The presumably 13-episode “Pippi Longstocking” TV show was redubbed and repackaged for theatrical release in the United States…Well, there you are, then, in a rather roundabout way, “Pippi Longstocking” is now a film franchise.
Now, this is an interesting way to fashion a franchise – The TV show was well finished by the time those sneaky Swedes thought to make Americans pay for their free socialist programming. Given this, there shall be no need to question why sequel follows sequel – All entries were already done, complete, simply awaiting distribution. At the very least, Lindgren’s own preexisting series of novels served as the basis for the Pippi film divisions – So we can see something like unified stories here, even while television itself would seem to preclude such possibilities.
The first film released, naturally, is Pippi Longstocking, which I’ve dated to 1969, as per its year of production – though not theatrical release. The cast and crew remains the same for all entries…and here’s one of ‘em: Our director is that swell Swede Olle Hellbom, also known for other glorious Scandinavian works such as Raggare!, Emil I Lönneberga, Nya hyss av Emil I Lönneberga, Världens bästa Karlsson and Rasmus pâ luffen! Man, that was a fun bunch of IMDb title searches!
The movie (and certainly those to come) is told with a decidedly childlike mentality – the colors are vibrant and solid, the characters are played with equal simplicity, and the “storyline” is a pastiche of different semi-connected set pieces – possibly an artifact of its TV show origins as much as an unfailingly gentle form of “non-aggravating” children’s entertainment. It’s all somehow both slice-of-life and stylized. There are no fart jokes.
Pippi Longstocking (or, by her full name, Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Ephraim’s Daughter Longstocking, which is an even bigger mess in Swedish) rides into a quaint and seemingly unnamed town upon her polka dotted horse, Old Man, her capuchin monkey Mr. Nilsson upon her shoulder. Her red braids stick out sideways, and she is strange looking. As played by Inger Nilsson (no monkey-relation), Pippi is pretty thoroughly out-of-control – she leaps, skips, and goes through life with an excess of energy I couldn’t hope to achieve with a fraternity’s worth of Red Bull and ecstasy. I’ve known girls like this, and it’s exceedingly tiring being in their presence. Still, Nilsson effectively gets across Pippi’s essence, so I cannot fault her for a crazy character.
I can mostly only comment on the actors’ physical performances, as the thing was dubbed for the U.S…and by my stated franchise demands, I hafta review the theatrical movies. Well, we oughta be familiar with dubbing conventions of the ‘60s and ‘70s, through chop socky flicks and/or spaghetti westerns. It’s never great. Actually, the voices seem to hover outside of the film eerily, never remotely matching the mouth movements (if 1969 Sweden was anything like 1969 Italy, they had no on-set recording equipment anyway). And because Pippi Longstocking plays up kid lit archetypes quite as The Good the Bad and the Ugly plays up western archetypes, the dubbed voices exacerbate the simplified cartoonishness of Pippi’s world.
Pippi has just moved herself into the bright pink chatteau, Villa Villekulla. She’s something of an emancipated minor, enjoying a life of pure freedom, without parents or school responsibilities – it’s like college! What a child does with such freedom, though, unlike a coed, is not to get pukingly drunk and violated, but to buy candy and play all day. It’s something of an unstructured childhood utopia, made possible by Pippi’s strength and her seemingly-inexhaustible chest full of South Seas coins.
Sharing in Pippi’s adventures, ‘cause we need a “viewpoint character,” are the Settergren siblings, Annika and Tommy (Maria Persson and Pär Sundberg). Especially contrasted with Pippi, they’re rather affectless and bland – they’re audience surrogates, after all. Really, they’re mostly here so that Pippi can have someone to (non-literally) bounce off of, when a horse or monkey just won’t do. They’re also, tenuously, our connection back to reality. A Swedish reality, mind you, meaning they’re somewhat glum sticks-in-ze-mud even whilst living in their socialist paradise.
As stated, there’s really no story to speak of, merely random low-key adventurizin’. What little conflict there is (author Lindgren, unlike Pixar, seems painfully opposed to fictional conflict) comes from the few adults who most directly oppose Pippi’s lack of structure – To over-read, I could pick out an institutionalized opposition to creativity amongst these adults, which seems exactly like something the Scandinavian and Germanic cultures would do.
Chief among Pippi’s tormenters is the town’s self-appointed busybody spinster frau, Fröken Prysselius (Margot Trooger). She balks at Pippi’s parentlessness, and demands she go to school – Pippi’s response rather reminds me of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)” – she don’t want no education. Sorry, bluenoses, this child’s gettin’ left behind!
Prysselius summons her minions upon Pippi in the form of slapstick constable duo Kling and Klang (Ulf G. Johnsson unt Göthe Grefbo). Watch as Pippi finds a gentle means of physically assaulting these “grown” men. Considering Pippi’s powers, she’s something of a Superman, minus the responsibility. It’s a good thing Pippi’s a good person, ‘cause otherwise – watch out! Germany-wise, I’d love to hear a Nietzschian’s take on her – I mean, she was created in 1944 Northern Europe! Annika and Tommy, of course, simply sit perfectly still and watch as what accounts for the plot happens all around them.
The other “threat” to Pippi is a cartoon duo of nameless crooks (by guesswork I assume they’re played by Hans Clerin and Paul Esser). They seek Pippi’s fortune of gold. While Pippi sits on her table (in a most “uncouth” and “rambunctious” way) counting her coins out like the Leprechaun, the crooks arrive to steal it. Pippi fools them in precisely the way Bugs Bunny does Elmer Fudd – for the first of many times. When the crooks aren’t enduring Pippi’s normally-fatal drubbings, they’re fleeing “Sir” Nilsson in fear of monkey-rabies. These are our villains here, people.
Now, you’d think with even how ineffectual these guys are, they’d at least form the bare backbone of a plot – you’d be wrong. The film’s middle half seems like this is the case, but then the crooks are defeated with a pure half hour or so left. Hell, everything that seems climactic proves not to be, including a hot air balloon ride that shall appear further down in the screen caps, I’m sure.
So, apart from these nebulous childish adventures I’ve neglected relating, is there any drive whatsoever to Pippi Longstocking? Oh sure, for even when Drama, that most tricky of genres, lacks for external conflict, you can always rely upon “internal conflict.” Pippi didn’t just spring ex nihilo; she has a back story – Oh boy! See, she has parents – the best parents possible, letting her run adorable rampage throughout Sweden. Her father, Efraim, is a South Seas ship’s captain and “cannibal king” (he eats no one, cannibals simply like him) – and he’s off on business. Pippi’s mom, meanwhile, is dead, which we learn through kid’s film euphemism. (And here I thought the Swedes were comfortable with Death.) Thus Pippi’s longing, as she speaks to her invisible, spectral Mother on many an occasion. Ah, token depth.
Really, though, it’s just all random silliness. My favorite example of this comes halfway through, when Pippi decides to crown a nonsense name upon a Japanese flower (don’t ask). That name she comes up with?...Spunk! Oh yeah! Now, at what point did translation fail us here? Says Pippi, in regards to her “spunk,” it “has a nice sound of it,” and she “don’t know what it means.”
Amassing Tommy and Annika for the hell of it, Pippi leads them in like 10 minutes of simply saying “spunk” at every possible moment – it’s like a “Beavis & Butthead” sketch! Then it’s off to town, to see how many of the menfolk have spunk. “I want to scare lions with my spunk.” “My spunk hurts, let’s go to the doctor.” The doctor informs Pippi she is without spunk, assuring her “spunk examinations are free.” Then Pippi catches Prysselius in a paint-bucket “spunk” trap, announcing “That must be spunk in her hair.” I am dead serious about all of this! Of course Europe is sexually liberated, so maybe this was all intentional.
So, that final half hour where it seems all conflict (and even unmotivated craziness) has failed us? Well, this is when Pippi’s father Efraim (Beppe Wolgers) comes to visit her – mere minutes after she sends off a letter in a bottle, as per the film’s casual magical realism.
So, father’s back. Alongside the whimsy inherent in trading spunk for seamen, here’s our new conflict – That self-pitying sourpuss Annika cries that Pippi shall soon leave them, the all-deserving Settergren siblings, to be with her father. How selfish of Pippi! But, really, would it be a Swedish movie without a lengthy scene of a little girl weeping?
Let us ignore purposeless Scandinavian sorrow, and instead focus on the final grand silliness. All the town’s children, and all of Efraim’s seamen, childlike minds to a one, have been invited to Villa Villekulla for a crazy, free-for-all, alcohol-free going-away party. Cue pie fights:
Cue raising one’s own seamen up on a door for all to see:
Then it’s off to the docks, for the finale, Pippi and Papa prepped to pull anchor. Well, it’s a somewhat lengthy scene, but I tire of typing, so here’s the gist – Annika sobs loudly in public, as is her Swedish wont, prompting Pippi to stay. Pre-adolescence has been perpetuated, Peter Pan style, as Pippi shall continue her wackiness with the bland siblings. It’s the sort of “status quo is god” ending one sees most in TV (hmm…), though it rather points to the emphasized lack of growth or change in this story. But really, it was all just meant initially as an author’s way to get her child to fall asleep, so can you fault it for that?
So Efraim alone sets sail with his yellow seamen, firing cannons into off screen parts of town as Pippi waves farewell. Jan Johansson’s perpetual, oompa-tinged soundtrack rises, having undergone a film-long evolution from “charming” to “ear worm” to “AARGHH!” “Here Comes Pippi Longstocking” ("Här Kommer Pippi Långstrump") plays, as Pippi leaves.
Oh course there’re three more of these, so what seems stagnant and plotless now may yet have someplace to go. That is essential when telling a serialized story, which is surely not what Pippi Longstocking is (TV aside)…I am at a loss now for things to say, rather as the movie itself seemed to be at, but maybe Pippi Goes on Board will set things right… (Reedit from the future: It won’t.)
Related posts:
• No. 2 Pippi Goes on Board (1969)
• No. 3 Pippi in the South Seas (1970)
• No. 4 Pippi on the Run (1970)
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