Le petit poucet

The movie is a free adaptation of the famous tale of Gilles Perrault: the overprotecting king and queen and the princess Rosemonde are new characters and they give a new romantic element to the story: the "Petit Poucet" will fall in love with the princess Rosemonde who live in the tower of the castle.

Let's com back to the main story: there is is a great famine and the lumberjack has decide to abandon his children (a lot of twins and the Tom Thumb in the forest, but Tom Thumb is a very cute boy, he has listened to the words of his father and marks his way by white stones. There is then an second of the father to abandon the children and the story becomes dramatic: the wolves are in the forest, but the children climb to the trees and are singing all the night the song "Viens manger ta soupe si tu veux grandir".

A mixture of dramatic moments (the stay in the ogre's house) and also sweet moments (the encounter of Tom Thumb with Rosemonde) and funny moments (the seven league boots and the escape from the ogre house).

I enjoyed thenperformances of Michel Robin (the lumberjack), of Jean-Pierre Marielle (the confusd ogre), of Jean-Luc Bideau (the king with prejudices), of Marie Laforêt (the queen) and of course of Titoyo (Tom Thumb).

In France ,it was obviously made to capitalize on the tremendous commercial (and critical ) success of "Peau D'Ane " (Donkey Skin )starring Catherine Deneuve released the precedent year; perhaps this juxtaposition is unfair:it must be admitted that Michel Boisrond's film suffers in this comparison:it's a far cry from highly talented Jacques Demy 's elegance, finesse and sense of wonder ; by the same token ,Francis Lai's score cannot match Michel Legrand 's magical talent.

That said, Michel Boisrond,a rather mediocre director ,if he did not produce an all time classic such as "Peau d 'Ane ",one must recognize that his take on Perrault is not devoid of qualities: the song over the cast and credits , then heard again sung by Poucet and his bros, has fine lyrics superbly imitating the French folk songs of yore ; Marie Laforêt is beautiful , a queen to her fingertips ;larger-than-life Jean-Pierre Marielle is ideally cast as the ogre ,even though he has a tendency to overact .

The Perrault fairytale , like "Bluebird " which was inspired by Joan of Ark's companion ,serial killer Gilles De Rais , is not far from reality ; under the reign of the Sun King , there were famine times and parents would sometimes abandon their children :Saint Vincent De Paul taking in babies in the churches, it was not legend .

But the fairytale was too short to transfer it into a full length feature film ;hence the necessity to invent another plot from start to finish : the royal story is not Perrault's even though the butterfly and the princess' sickness seem to have been borrowed from "peau d'âne " ( similarities with the ring and the prince's illness) ; nevertheless Jean -Luc Bidault and Marie Laforêt (whose beauty has no cause to be jealous of Deneuve's )make a credible fairytale royal couple with their daughter ,whom they poison from protection . The settings in the castle where the young girl is wrapped up in cotton wool and those of the ogre 's den , with its bloody walls make a starking welcome contrast.

A note about Disney : his take on Perrault ("Sleeping Beauty" ) scared me to death when I watched it when I was a child ; if Maleficent is "politically correct" ,then give me more!

This movie is a "cultissime" movie for people of my generation in France, and also for my children. This movie is very poetic, and intelligent, far from aggressive, violent, and conventional "modern" children movies today. Of course, the special effect are not made with tons of dollars, but it's much better !!!! I desperately looking for it somewhere...And the music is fabulous !!!! This movie is typically from the same style than "Peau d'ane" with Catherine Deneuve. You're really inside the charles perrault universe, you believe in it and you don't need computers and 5.1 DTS surrounds sounds effects for that. So please, don't criticize this film without a minimum of culture background.

I agree : this movie is really great and very poetic ! Its music (yes, scary some times but I don't see why it should be strange with such a story !), its atmosphere, the actors (Jean-Pierre Marielle as the ogre, Marie Laforet as the Queen - both of them very famous and good French actors), the lights... OK, the special effects are... well that's what you could do in 1972 with few money ! I loved it so much when I was a little girl ! And I can see that it is still true nowadays : my children love it too (unfortunately they can see only extracts online... )! You can't judge it with adult's eyes !!!! Don't forget that it is a story for children... Just see how children watch it : they 'live' it, it is incredible ! And this really is Perrault's world and not Disney movies which change the stories to make them 'politically correct'...