Pippi Longstocking,
Superstar!!!
Swedish children's writer Astrid Lindgren, who died in early 2002, conjured up the little girl who was to become an icon for worldwide child-empowerment during an impromptu bedtime story session for her young daughter Karin over half a century ago. Noting the response given to this puckish invention, Lindgren decided to write a book based on the exploits of 'Pippi Långstrump' - for so this red-headed imp of the perverse with the gravity-defying pigtails had been baptised by the author's delighted daughter - and the rest is literary history. 'Pippi Longstocking' is how English-speaking territories know Lindgren's cheeky creation, and her adventures have charmed and inspired children, and the young at heart, everywhere since the 1940s, though it took several refusals before the book was published, some perceiving Pippi as a threat to Swedish family values.
The idea of a nine-year-old girl living alone without parental protection/control was just too much for many at the time, and indeed since. Lindgren was constantly attacked during her lifetime by some educationalists for favouring strong-willed, independent child characters like Pippi, and later on the stroppy, thoroughly irrepressible and occasionally delinquent five-year-old 'Lotta From The Noisy Street'. Others also thought that her allusions to darker themes within her tales, such as drunkenness, death and even child-abduction, rendered her writing unsuitable for children, criticisms Lindgren always shrugged off as she knew her readers better than these would-be censors ever could.
In some ways the carping critics were right to see the character of Pippi as an overt challenge to the status quo, for she is genuinely subversive in her anti-authoritarian, self-educated world-view. Inside her chaotic home there are no rules. None. It's a childhood paradise, where kids can clamber over the furniture, cook as messily as they want to, swing from chandeliers, even discharge a loaded pistol into the ceiling, all without adult interference! As disturbing for others perhaps is that Pippi is clearly the product of a 'broken home', her mother dead and her sea captain father otherwise engaged in the South Seas as a 'cannibal king'! Such irresponsibility, eh?
Hold that call to Social Services though, for living alone in the Villa Villekulla (apart from her horse Old Man and pet monkey Mr Nilsson), not only does Pippi survive quite happily, but she actively thrives on what the townspeople see as overwhelming adversity. Pippi is empowered as a result, both mentally and physically. She is after all the strongest girl in the whole world - a veritable 'young Amazon' - dishing out retribution to bullying kids, besting bumbling small-town policemen and outwitting scrofulous burglars intent on robbing her of her gold coins.
Here's another thing to ponder: Pippi is stinking rich, but uses her wealth to buy candy and toys for all the town's children, and she is unstintingly generous to her two constant companions Tommy and Annika, the next-door kids she 'liberated' from their humdrum life. Pippi knows that wealth doesn't automatically require one to turn into a braying, bigoted boor. In a world ruled largely by rampant consumerism this was seen as an unwelcome notion to be put before children. Small wonder that some grown-ups tut-tutted at this 'dangerous' libertarian, left-of-centre doctrine being peddled by a pesky Continental, a response that Lindgren possibly anticipated, as she mocked it constantly in her writing.
The first Pippi book was published in Sweden in 1945 and it didn't take too long for Lindgren's plucky pint-sized anti-heroine to reach the screen. There was a b/w Swedish film, PIPPI LÅNGSTRUMP, directed in 1949 by Per Gunwall (some sources date it to 1948), but this is rarely seen and the few stills that surface from it show a bulky young woman with a female wrestler physique, hardly the ideal depiction of a boisterous nine year old girl!
After this production it took nearly two decades before anyone else attempted to film Pippi, and when they did it was for the small screen. In 1968 Swedish company KB Nordart linked up with Germany's Beta Film, München, to produce a series of 13 episodes that aired in Sweden under the title PIPPI LÅNGSTRUMP. As director the producers cannily chose Olle Hellbom, who had already helmed a considerable number of Astrid Lindgren adaptations for both the big and small screen, starting with MÄSTERDETECTIVEN BLOMKVIST LEVER FARLIGT (MASTER-DETECTIVE BLOMKVIST LIVES DANGEROUSLY) in 1957.
The true success of the series was clinched with their choice for the feisty carrot-topped one herself, 9 year old Inger Nilsson, a multi-talented child actress as witnessed in her confident onscreen characterisation, full of the boundless energy so necessary for such a demanding role. Whether it was horse-riding, ice-skating, clambering up trees, swarming over sheer rock faces or swimming in lakes, Inger took it all in her bestockinged stride. Quite simply she was Pippi Longstocking. No-one prior to or since her has ever come close. What is perhaps not known by many is that Inger was not a true redhead at all, but a blonde, and photos exist that show her posing prior to the dye-job!
With screenplays written by Astrid Lindgren, herself a regular set-visitor who had personally endorsed Inger's Pippi, and with sterling back-up from Pär Sundberg as Tommy, and the winsome Maria Persson as Annika, the TV series got off to a cracking start as Pippi arrives in town astride her spotted horse 'Old Man', buck-teeth bared in an artless smile, chattering monkey perched on her shoulder, to take up residence in the abandoned Villa Villekulla. With her freckle-spangled cheeks, her raggledy-taggledy pigtails and oversized shoes (not to mention her trademark leggings!) she sticks out like a somewhat grubby sore thumb in polite small-town Sweden. Pippi soon becomes a regular magnet for trouble and fun, at one point trashing a coffee-party held by Tommy and Annika's mother (renowned actress Öllegård Wellton), outraging the stolid local matrons with her anti-social but innocent antics, turning the event into a gloriously messy nose-picking, cake-guzzling, free-for-all and literally pulling the rug out from under their feet.
Through a series of adventures involving perilous ballon-flights, fairground fun, ghost-hunting and constant battles with the interfering social worker Miss Prysselius (Margot Trooger), dopey cops Kling and Klang (Ulf G. Johnsson and Göthe Grefbo respectively) and the thieving Thunder-Karlsson (Hans Clarin) and Blom (Paul Esser), right up to the tear-jerking final episode of Pippi's near-departure with her paunchy Pa, Captain Longstocking (jovial giant Beppe Wolgers), the TV series was hugely popular.
With demand for Pippi Longstocking and Inger Nilsson at near-Beatlemania levels in Scandinavia and Europe (she even recorded a couple of hit singles for the Philips label), two big screen spin-offs were shot subsequently in Sweden: PIPPI LÅNGSTRUMP PÅ DE SJU HAVEN (PIPPI LONGSTOCKING ON THE SEVEN SEAS), in which the red-headed minx and her loyal friends battled an island full of the campest pirates imaginable to rescue Pippi's father, and PÅ RYMMEN MED PIPPI LÅNGSTRUMP (ON THE RUN WITH PIPPI LONGSTOCKING), depicting Pippi, Tommy and Annika's exploits as runaways in the Swedish wilds, both being released in 1970.
In Germany four films were released, PIPPI LANGSTRUMPF and PIPPI GEHT VON BORD (PIPPI GOES ON BOARD) in 1969, and PIPPI IN TAKA-TUKA-LAND and PIPPI AUSSER RAND UND BAND in 1970. The first two German films were in fact merely the bulk of the TV series edited together in a haphazard 'shake 'n' bake' manner, which on occasions throws chronology and continuity out of the window, whilst the second pair were slightly shorter mix-downs of the Swedish films. In 1973 Sweden belatedly released another Pippi film, HÄR KOMMER PIPPI LÅNGSTRUMP (HERE COMES PIPPI LONGSTOCKING), also taken from the original 13 part TV series from 1968 (Germany finally ran the TV series in 1971, adding in a further 8 episodes that featured even longer edits of the TAKA-TUKA-LAND and AUSSER RAND UND BAND footage).
The Pippi TV series and films rampaged throughout Europe and much of the world during this period, gaining a foothold they have never relinquished. 1973 saw the U.S. succumb to Pippi, with the release of the first of four English-dubbed films,
PIPPI LONGSTOCKING, followed by
PIPPI IN THE SOUTH SEAS (1974),
PIPPI GOES ON BOARD (1975) and
PIPPI ON THE RUN (1977). These rather poorly-dubbed versions of the Inger Nilsson films nevertheless became kiddie matinee faves throughout the Seventies, and are remembered fondly by many to this day.
By 1970 and PÅ RYMMEN.../PIPPI ON THE RUN it was becoming clear that the ever-reliable trio of Inger Nilsson, Pär Sundberg and Maria Persson would have to be put out to pasture. Inger Nilsson's not-so-ugly duckling was shedding her down, with an indefinably more mature persona pushing through the cheeky exterior, the lovably gawky brat being replaced by a rather more cooler, sleeker young girl, with toned-down apparel (note the slightly more sensible footwear!) and somewhat tidier braids. Pippi was growing up... And she was not the only one.
Dutiful home-girl she may well be at heart (despite the clear irony of Pippi being the true home-owner!), but by the final film flirty Annika opens up and becomes pretty sassy, no doubt following Pippi's cheerfully insolent lead. Sweet-faced, hampster-cheeked Maria Persson is perfectly cast to play this subtle role, it's a joy to see her change from a total innocent to a more informed, confident character as the films progress.
As for Pippi, in PIPPI ON THE RUN, though still the eternal outsider, she displays a tad more practicality, which at times almost borders on commonsense. Her unique social conscience is more focussed too, she's quick as ever with her own brand of home-spun philosophy, but it's never allowed to become cloying or politically correct. Curiously, Pär Sundberg's permanently squinting Tommy is the one character who hardly alters throughout. He's the rock around which the emotional currents of the two girls swirl endlessly, a stolid dependable anchor. It's noticeable that Tommy never seems to play with other children much (the snowballing and ice-skating scenes in PIPPI GOES ON BOARD aside), being largely content to hang out with his sister and Pippi. Fiercely loyal to Pippi, who can forget the lump-in-the-throat moment when he reads out his farewell poem to her at the end of the first film?
Another aspect that works particularly well is the way in which Tommy and Annika have to on occasion deflate Pippi from her flights of fancy. Pippi is a prolific (though never malicious) liar, and her friends constantly challenge the veracity of her often ludicrous claims and anecdotes. Interestingly Pippi generally owns up to her falsehoods passively. In PIPPI ON THE RUN she goes one step further than merely fibbing or exaggerating, by actually defying the rules of logic and nature: at one point Tommy literally has to bring her down to earth, when she hovers in mid-air in the barn after jumping from a roof-beam, with a curt "Pippi, will you stop that, that's impossible and you know it!", to which our supergirl replies "I know it is, but it's lots of fun anyway!", after which she plops obediently into the hay.
Some critics have suggested that Pippi may in fact be a witch, and indeed the final shot of this last ever Inger Nilsson Pippi outing has her whizzing on a broomstick around Villa Villekulla... (incidentally, the Italian title of this film, the wonderful poster for which highlighted this brief flight of fancy, translates as 'That Witch Pippi Longstocking' so it would seem that they at least were in no doubt!).
The Pippi films have occasionally shaky production values (obvious back-projection shots, some poor matte and model work etc.) but who cares? These were low-budget children's films shot in the late Sixties. If you demand technically perfect, sterile, overblown entertainment you can always go watch any one of the recent ultra-hyped Hollywood CGI showreels that pass for entertainment at the start of the new Millennium, and good luck to you. Give me the life-affirming vigour of Pippi's adventures any day.
Crude they may well be, naive certainly, but they're not dumb, catching as they do so much of the wide-eyed wonder of childhood, albeit as reflected in a distorted fairground mirror like the one Pippi keeps at home ('Pippi through the Looking Glass'?). Scenes of the three children kite-flying, horse-riding, tree-climbing, camping and messing about in boats effortlessly evoke those long, lazily languid days of the school holidays that seemed to stretch out forever...
Of course the films have their technical merits too. Along with the well-chosen musical cues that underpin the onscreen antics (courtesy of Georg Riedel, Hans Alfredson and Konrad Elfers), it has to be said that these productions look simply gorgeous. Kudos for cool camerawork go to Kalle Bergholm. At times the screen is ablaze with vivid primary colours, from Inger's fiery braids, through the kaleidoscopic kiddie-carnival of Pippi's farewell party in the first film and the glowing blues and greens of the Scandinavian skies and fields, taking in a burst of violent volcanic activity and sun-drenched idyllic tropical scenery en-route to Taka-Tuka-Land... And over everything falls the paisley-patterned shadow of the times, though the characters seem to inhabit a curious 'Never Never Land' in which people drive clunky 1930s style cars despite their more up to date clothes, and pirate galleons still roam the Southern Seas (of course this in itself borders on psychedelic whimsy).
There's even a topical pill-popping scene in PIPPI GOES ON BOARD when the three kids attempt to stay young forever by ingesting dried peas! Trippy visuals aside, Inger's Pippi epitomises the zeitgeist of the surreal Sixties to perfection: "We're sort of weird, but so what?" she says, without apparent rancour, to the farmer's sons in PIPPI ON THE RUN after hearing them making adverse comments about her and her companions.
It's only a short step from the bric-a-brac-bestrewn bedlam of Pippi's hallucinogenic homestead to the average Hippie squat after all. However, Pippi is no spaced-out flower-child, more of an amiable anarchist and 'Kid's Lib' Storm Trooper, but with her brightly patched home-made clothes, her boundless optimism and madcap world-view she's something of a Free Festival all on her own, and everyone is invited...
A measure of the cultural impact of the films can be gained through a look at the varied responses to them over the years, by critics and fans alike. Over the last few decades the Pippi films have been seized on by feminists and gays who see in them subtexts that support their respective causes.
It certainly can be said that Pippi predates perfectly the 'Riot Grrrl' movement of the early 1990s (one can readily imagine her fronting a Punk band!) and there's more 'Girl Power' in her little finger than all of the Spice Girls and their posing, pouting ilk put together. Her tomboy nature and oft-remarked empathy with Annika have also given some commentators pause for thought, and a few have even claimed to have discerned other disturbing erotic undertones... Lolita Longstocking?
This last theory, scurrilously promoted by self-serving Swedish underground artist and filmmaker Palle Torsson in a short film called 'Pippi Examples' which edited pirated film clips and promotional stills into an out-of-context montage of bare legs and briefly flashed knickers, caused great anguish to Astrid Lindgren in the last years of her life, and led to actress Inger Nilsson angrily attacking this vitriolic slur on director Hellbom and her own onscreen role: the film was suppressed following threats of legal action over copyright theft and overwhelming public outrage in Sweden.
As previously mentioned, on the Continent, especially in Scandinavia and Germany, where Pippi's adventures fed seamlessly into a rich folk-tradition of children's fairy-tales, the Pippi TV series and follow-up films were very successful, bringing Inger Nilsson cult fame but little financial reward, as she was paid a one-off fee and had no royalty agreement with regard to the marketing of the films and her own character and image. She also ran into problems with people around her expecting her to always act like Pippi, treating her as though she was still the bright-eyed little girl of the original series.
In fact she had never found things as easy to handle as her brash screen persona would seem to indicate: a quiet country-girl from Kisa in Östergötland, in contrast to the Stockholm-born duo of Maria Persson and Pär Sundberg, Inger had often struggled with home-sickness and a lack of confidence on-set, and suffered particularly badly during the shooting of PIPPI IN THE SOUTH SEAS, when the cast and crew decamped for location shooting in the West Indies. Pippi became an Albatross around Inger's neck and she left school determined to turn her back on acting.
However, after a spell working as a secretary, Inger returned to the fray in the Eighties, appearing mostly in provincial stage plays and Swedish TV productions. Her most recent role was that of housekeeper 'Frau Andersson' in the superb Swiss/German film GRIPSHOLM (2000), directed by Xavier Koller. Despite it being a secondary role with little dialogue, Inger can still hold the screen and, yes, she does still look a little like Pippi!
Whenever interviewed about Pippi she still retains bitterness towards what she sees as her childhood exploitation, in contrast to the reminiscences of Maria Persson and Pär Sundberg, who recall those halcyon days with fondness if a little bemusement over the lasting legacy of the films. Amongst their revelations were that both of Inger's animal co-stars had to be doped-up to keep them under control during the lengthy filming!
Director Olle Hellbom, who had based almost his entire career around Astrid Lindgren adaptations, died in 1982, followed by Producer Olle Nordemar in 1999. Hellbom's films regularly surface on TV, video-cassette and now DVD, particularly in Sweden and Germany, and the Pippi films continue to be screened in Continental cinemas and at children's film festivals.
In Europe the image of Inger's Pippi can be purchased everywhere, in the form of postcards, calendars, wall-posters, jigsaw puzzles and other memorabilia, and U.S. film-related material from the Seventies is eagerly sought by fans and serious collectors alike. Soundtrack CDs of the films' songs and music are readily found in Continental music-stores. The Internet plays host to a plethora of Inger Nilsson fan-sites, including one highlighting a 'birthday countdown'!
It would seem that despite their detractors (humourless, huffy sad-sacks one and all) these "endlessly charming" films (to quote Paige La Grone) are not about to disappear in a hurry. With the recent releases of the Pippi films on DVD throughout Europe, including glorious remastered widescreen Swedish versions, it may well be time for Astrid Lindgren's timeless scamp to gain new generations of fans through her greatest incarnation. Pippi Longstocking forever! - 'rah!
copyright 2003, Nigel J. Burrell, all rights reserved
(photos, posters and memorabilia courtesy of the 'Mondo Pippi' archives, used in the spirit of publicity.)
