Il flauto a sei puffi

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.

My review was written in February 1984 after a Times Square screening.

"The Smurfs and the Magic Flute" is an uninteresting but innocuous animated feature film bringing the popular hit of books, tv and merchandising, the Smurfs (or "Schtroumpfs" as they were originally known in parts of Europe) to the big screen. Its success in U. S. distribution just before the last Christmas season is more a testament to effective marketing and a vacuum of new, G-rated product than to the virtues of the film itself.

Weak, episodic storyline, set in the Middle Ages, has a bandit named Oilycreep stealing the magic flute (which has the power to cause people to dance uncontrollably when it is played) from Pee Wee at the king's castle. Pee Wee, whose dubbed voice vaguely resembles that of comic Pee Wee Herman, sets out on a dull trek with his pal Johan to retrieve the magical instrument.

Hypnotized by a friendly wizard, the twosome are transported to the land of the Smurfs, tiny blue creatures who all look alike and wear white hats and pants, except for their 542-year-old leader Papa Smurf, whose hat and pants are red. The Smurfs fabricate a second magic flute for Pee Wee, who ultimately bests Oilycreep in a final reel musical battle. Film has no relationship to Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute".

Despite their billing and title come-on, the Smurfs do not appear (save for a tiny blue hand entering the frame at one point) until the second half of the film. A defensive song designed to demonstrate hw individual Smurfs act like their names only proves that the character animation here lacks the differentiation of say, Disney's Seven Dwarfs.

The film utilizes rather limited animation techniques, with pretty but strictly static backgrounds against which the characters move. Absence of much fantasy material is disappointing and the labored gags aren't funny. The Smurfs themselves have irritating resonant voices and the premise of substituting the word "Smurf" for nouns and verbs in their language is run into the ground. Michel Legrand's soundtrack score (to which additional music has been added for the U. S. release version) is subpar.

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.

With this title, you would expect the movie to be about the smurfs, but in fact they only appear in the second half of the movie. The actual main characters are Johan and Pirlouit, the heroes of a different comic book series by the same creator (Peyo), which are much less well-known internationally. In fact the English dubs renames them as a generic John and William. I gather this was the first appearance in film of the smurfs, and they were not yet famous. Anyway, this was a decent movie that never trascended its target audience. Little kids should enjoy it, but for adults it does not have much to offer, although certain moments and details are funny, and it has decent songs and animation. I did enjoy Johan and Pirlouit more than the smurfs, who are tiny and cute but a bit tiresome with their insistence of substituting every verb with "smurf" when they speak.

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.