Pippi on the Run
(1970 Sweden/Germany) color 99 minutes
English-Language Version:
With: Inger Nilsson (Pippi), Maria Persson (Annika), Pär Sundberg (Tommy), Öllegård Wellton (Mrs. Settergren), Hans Alfredson (Konrad), Walter Richter (Grumpy Farmer)
***
Plot outline: After being nagged by their mother for staying out late with Pippi, rather than weed the strawberry bed as punishment the following day, Annika and Tommy decide to run away, just like the children in the book Tommy is reading. A worried Mrs Settergren begs Pippi to accompany her wayward offspring, to ensure they come to no harm. Initially reluctant, Pippi finally succumbs to persuasion, and the trio set off astride Pippi's ever stoic horse, Little Old Man, into the Swedish countryside.
After a brief pause to pick wild strawberries (oh, the irony!), the trio are stranded in a derelict house, sheltering from a sudden thunder-storm, when Pippi's steed is panicked into running away... They encounter a wildly-bearded peddlar, Konrad, and the children spend a jolly evening with him, sharing a meal and experimenting with the salesman's latest invention, a slimy green 'superglue': Pippi is delighted to discover that on applying this substance to the soles of her shoes she can walk up the wall and even dance on the ceiling!
The next day Konrad slips off early to avoid having his ears washed by a motherly Annika. The trio carry on into the wilds, abseiling down a perilous rock-face, before Pippi decides to show off by rolling into the river inside a barrel. This splits up the children for a while, as Pippi is swept away downstream, over rapids and waterfalls, leaving a worried Tommy and Annika struggling vainly to catch up with her...
After a night of misadventures in the dark forest, the three travelling companions are reunited in a nearby town, and after busking for food-money, the children jump from a railway bridge atop a passing train, and from thence into a passing hay-wagon, pitching up at a farm, where the grumpy farmer allows them to sleep the night in his barn. The following morning Pippi repays this grudging generosity by rescuing the farmer's youngest son from a rampaging bull... Olé! A gift by the grateful man of a rusting old car wreck allows Pippi, Tommy and Annika to carry on their travels in, er, style... Fuelled by the last of a jar of Konrad's superglue mixed with rainwater, Pippi roars the ramshackle roadster so fast down the country lanes that eventually she coaxes it into the air for a wobbly, perilous flight that ends with them crash-landing in a lake. Tommy and Annika are left shivering in their underpants, their clothes eaten by a herd of cows(!) whilst they swim nearby, but Pippi filches some old potato sacks for them to wear. A second attempt at busking fails dismally, but a tight-rope walking display by Pippi raises enough cash to clothe her companions. However, the jubilant runaways are taken into protective custody by the well-meaning local policeman.
Pippi promptly breaks out of jail, and leads her friends cross-country on foot. Rain-drenched, footsore, and thoroughly fed-up, Tommy and Annika wish they'd never run away in the first place. Following a brief reunion with Konrad, Pippi and her travelling companions make it back home with the aid of Little Old Man, who they discover grazing nearby. Tommy and Annika are glad to be back, and the Settergrens are delighted to see their children alive and well, leaving a satisfied Pippi to return home to Villa Villekulla, job well done!
***
Easily my favourite of the Pippi films, PIPPI ON THE RUN proved to be the final entry in the popular series, as the central child-cast were growing up fast. A pity, but there you go... However, it proved to be a worthy capper to the Pippi saga, with a lot going on to engage the viewer's interest. The heart of the plot has Tommy and Annika pushing for independence from parental control, undoubtably as a result of Pippi's anarchic influence, though the bolshy siblings ultimately decide - like Dorothy in THE WIZARD OF OZ - that there's no place like home after all! A strangely conservative message to thread through a film that in all other ways shows the children roaming wild and free to do whatever they so desire, no matter how potentially lethal, without fear of adult interference, and in which grown-ups and social niceties are generally mocked and derided by Pippi and her two companions in true late Sixties counter-culture style... Of all the Pippi films PIPPI ON THE RUN is perhaps the closest to a 'Kids Liberation' manifesto, but over and above everything else this is a fun family film, so let's not try to over-analyse things.
In this film Pippi's animal companions are largely written out of the plot (they were reputedly hard to handle onset, and had to be drugged to keep them under control!), thereby giving the spotlight to the three children. And how they relish it!
From the opening scenes of family stress/arguments we are shown a different Tommy and Annika to the two homely kids we've seen before. In particular Maria Persson's Annika has really blossomed as a character; her experiences hanging out with Pippi have obviously rubbed off on her (that tantalising Pippi/Annika chemistry again)! She shouts and pouts at her flabbergasted mother, storms off to 'run away' (loyal Tommy in tow), flirts with the peddlar Konrad, survives a hazardous rock-face descent, fords rivers... there's simply no stoppin' the girl! One of my favourite scenes has Annika winning a swearing contest! Now that's a turn up for the books... We are as far from the Annika of the first two films as one can possibly get (we'd seen a glimpse of the new Annika in PIPPI IN THE SOUTH SEAS...), and clearly there's no going back for her.
Of course this is a film about Pippi, and she remains the focus throughout. Like a mother hen keeping her unruly brood in line, our supergirl looks out for the well-being of her two young companions, though she is not always as scrupulous as Mrs Settergren would probably have wished! In fact on occasion she is downright derelict in her duties! But curiously, we are shown that this in fact helps Tommy and Annika rather than hinders them. They grow as individuals by being made to get along without Pippi's all-powerful intervention, though of course they are delighted to be re-united with her after their brief seperation in the forest.
PIPPI ON THE RUN sees Pippi achieve her full potential as regards her supernormal power. In PIPPI GOES ON BOARD we saw her practising at flying by hurling herself off a cliff, and failing... not so here! On a number of occasions she not only challenges the laws of Nature, but surpasses them. When looking for Tommy and Annika we see her riding (no, make that flying) the wheel-less remnants of a bicycle through the town streets - to the obvious bemusement of the locals - and later on in the barn she jumps off a roof-beam and hovers in the air before finally plopping into the hay. And it seems to be Pippi herself who powers the old car-wreck into its sub-CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG journey rather than its dubious, if impressively foaming, fuel. And the theory expounded by some critics that Pippi might in fact be a witch is given powerful credence here in the final scene of Pippi swooping around Villa Villekulla astride a broomstick! We finally perceive that Pippi may in fact be not only super-strong, but supernatural... Inger Nilsson excels once again in this testing role.
It's hard to pick a favourite moment in this film, but I'd go for the bit where Pippi teases Annika about her becoming like her nagging mother. At this aspersion Annika positively glowers at Pippi... if looks could kill! There's also some great humour in the scene where Tommy and Annika have their clothes eaten by cows: "But this is no good, Pippi" wails Annika, "it's very hard to run away without any clothes on!"... She has a point! The ensuing shot of the three children, Tommy and Annika attired somewhat gloomily in scratchy sacking, being harassed by the town's children ("New style honey?" mocks one boy, poking an obviously irritated Annika) underscores the embarrassing nature of their situation. And check out the crazy 'Turkish dance' that the trio put on in a vain attempt to raise money for clothes... groovy!
Special effects are of course rather ramshackle, but thoroughly endearing and in keeping with the times. As with PIPPI IN THE SOUTH SEAS, this outing is more coherently plotted than the first two films which were edited together from scraps of the TV series, and there are some good songs at regular intervals, with strong vocal contributions by all three children. One of the unsung stars of the film is the Swedish countryside itself, which we get to see a lot of, from tenebrous pine forests to entrancing lakes. Who, child or adult, would not wish to follow Pippi on her adventures through such an alluring landscape?
As the old saying would have us believe, all good things must come to an end, and so PIPPI ON THE RUN signalled the demise of the Inger Nilsson/Pippi film franchise, finishing things on a positive note. Fortunately, their enduring popularity on video and now DVD has ensured that these films remain strong favourites with children worldwide, and there seems little chance of Inger's Pippi being allowed to fade into obscurity.
copyright 2004 --- Nigel Burrell
Video/DVD information: Available on VHS in various European countries and the USA, on DVD in Germany and Holland (Junior) and Sweden (SFI). Swedish DVD is remastered from original negative, anamorphic widescreen 1.77:1 (non-anamorphic 1.66:1 OAR) with extras, German/Dutch DVD is slightly letterboxed at 1.66:1 OAR with choice of Dutch or German soundtracks and, through branching, respective title sequences.
(aka PIPPI AUSSER RAND UND BAND,
PÅ RYMMEN MED PIPPI LÅNGSTRUMP)
Beta Film GmbH / Iduna Film-KB Nord Art / Constantin-Film
Story: Astrid Lindgren
Screenplay: Astrid Lindgren
Music: Jan Johansson
Cinematography: Kalle Bergholm
Produced by Olle Nordemar
Directed by Olle Hellbom
(1977) G.G. Communications 96 minutes
Produced by N.W. Russo
