La Flûte à six schtroumpfs

I used to be obsessed with comic books as a child. When we weren't playing soccer, me and my friends would ride our bikes to the city library where we'd spend the day reading their gigantic collection, and then take an average of 12 back home with us twice a week. Asterix, Les Tuniques Bleues, Chick Bill, Iznogoud, Thorgal, Achille Talon...all amazing series which I have to thank for my excellent proficiency in the french language. The library also had several movies the public was free to watch, including this one, one of my absolute favorites. I had forgotten all about it until I recently caught it on television while channel jumping...the wave of memories it stirred up at the moment made me cry, I'm not embarassed to say it.

This one-hour cartoon movie unites both the Les Schtroumpfs (the Smurfs) series and the Johan Et Pirlouit series, both by belgian comic book immortal Peyo. Pirlouit, the lovable midget prankster, gets his hand on a magical flute made by les schtroumpfs that forces whoever listens to its melody to dance uncontrollably. You can imagine what he does with it :) However he makes the mistake of demonstrating its power in front of Torchesac, a wandering traveller spending the night in the castle, who subsequently steals it and uses it to rob people by making them dance until they pass out of fatigue. Now Johan and Pirlouit must get it back at all costs, so they head to the magical kingdom of les schtroumpfs to ask for their help.

This movie is extremely old so the animation isn't up to par with what you see today, however it has something today's cartoons don't have: great humor and excellent dialogue. C'est inoui, halfway through the movie I couldn't help but feel pity for today's kids who grow up on cartoons where the dialogue is dumbed down as much as possible, or made cookie-cutter in the sense that there MUST be a moral lesson in the end. It's like they were americanized. This movie isn't like that, the dialogue contains vocabulary and sentence syntax of high level, it feels exactly like reading french comics.

The music is great as well, highlights are the "flute fight" between Pirlouit and Torchesac and the song "Un Petit Schtroumpf", which is probably one of the best musicals moments in film.

When I was little I was forced to sit down and watch this movie. Though my brother was somehow entertained, I was really bored. This movie drags on forever. It probably would've worked better as a short film. I will give it credit though, the animation is pretty good, as well as the concept. Too bad it fails at the execution. There are too many plot holes, the jokes drag on, and most of this movie is unnecessary filler.

Hello from Barcelona. Yes, this is a great movie. The smurfs don't appear until minute 35 or so but never mind. Johan and Pewee characters are lovely and we know they will meet smurfs later so never mind. The film is 74 minutes long, not 89. Michel Legrand songs are really beautiful and brilliant. All children will love this film and many not so children... Smurfs are drawn much better than the terrific Hanna-Barbera cartoon shows. Here they are just smurfs as they must be, not some kind of bad project bad drown and with no gracefulness. We see Peyo WAS in this movie. If you know the book of this film then you must watch this it. I wonder why it doesn't exist on DVD. There are some smurfs official DVD's in France but this movie is not available yet and I don't understand why if this is the only smurf film ever. I think you can find it in USA, UK, France, Germany, Belgium and Netherlands, but always in VHS format. In some countries it is long deleted since lots of years ago but easy to find in eBAY for example. It's nearly impossible to find in Spain 'cause it was only for rent. In Catalonia there are the catalan version which is just adorable. So...we want this movie on DVD today!! And you must watch it right now!! Joan from Barcelona

Though only 17 years since I've known of it, I thought I'd commemorate the 25th(!) anniversary of the film by revisiting my childhood memories of it. Being a kid of the 80's, the Smurfs was one of the cartoons I grew up on. Apparrently they've been around since the late 50's and made it to the big screen in 1976 with this Belgium feature. I still remember saying "Mom, why are their voices different than on the tv show?" Today is still puzzles me. If this was dubbed for American audiences two years after the show premiered, why did they not go with the tv voices? Still don't know. And also, the voices we do get all seem to be echoing somewhat, with the exception of Papa Smurf. And there is no Smurfette. Or Gargamuel. Or Azreal. But it doesn't hurt the film at all, as the Smurfs are secondary anyway. They don't even show up until 25 minutes in! And aren't even really seen until 35 minutes in! But when the Land of the Smurfs is reached, it's guilty pleasure time, for me at least. The three dopey songs featured are somehow extremely catchy. The one explaining how the Smurfs tell each other apart. Then later it's human character Pee-Wee trying to make out the Smurf language. Capped off by "We're the Smurfs, la, la!" The main story concerns the title instrument, which makes people dance upon hearing it. It's stolen by a villian named McCreep, who robs people by playing the flute, which causes them to be unable to defend themselves. They dance about and he makes off with their gold. The flute was created by the Smurfs, so a prince and a short, excitable musician from a royal court are recruited in tracking down the Smurfs for help. Harmless fun for kids, and I still get a kick out of it today. The animation if fair for a 25 year old movie, as the real star for me was Pee-Wee. So, give it a shot for youngsters or have fun taking yourself back in seeing it for the first time in awhile.

The Smurfs and the Magic Flute (1975) is the second movie in the Smurfs franchise and it was very average.

Positives for The Smurfs and the Magic Flute (1975): The animation in this movie looks pretty good and is a nice update from the 1960's movie. The Smurfs are still fun characters to watch on screen. The human characters were a nice addition and their interactions with the Smurfs were fun. And finally, I watched this movie for free on YouTube.

Negatives for The Smurfs and the Magic Flute,(1975): The Smurfs are barely in the movie and this movie has them as the title characters. The movie spends too much time on the human characters and they aren't even the reason to watch this movie. The magic flute doesn't really play a major part in the story and is just a random item for the humans to play with. And finally, this movie feels like it was supposed to be something different, only for the Smurfs to be added in at the last minute.

Overall, The Smurfs and the Magic Flute (1975) is a fine animated movie from the 1970's, but it barely qualifies as a Smurfs movie.