Pinkeltje

Instead of adapting one of the many Pinkeltje books by Dick Laan, the filmmakers decided to do a 'further adventures of' featuring the writer himself. It turns out 6 inch Pinkeltje Witbaard (Aart Staartjes) visits Dick Laan (Bob de Lange) after every adventure, so Dick can write another book. In most of these Pinkeltje went off to have an adventure on his own but this time he is joined by his wife Pinkelotje (Wieteke van Dort), and no less than five other 'Pinkels' get involved.

Three important Pinkels: an inventor, a princess and her lady in waiting have been kidnapped by a human professor and his henchmen. While Pinkeltje, Pinkelotje and Dick Laan are forming a rescue plan, Prince Pinkelbert and Ponkel Poortbewaarder, who fancy the two missing females, mount a rescue operation of their own.

The 'Pinkels' were shot on video and chroma keyed onto film to interact with normal sized people. The result leaves something to desired, but in 1978 it was still pretty amazing, especially for a Dutch film. The charm of the story lies in the characters and situations, like in Dick Laan's original work. The 'Pinkels' view of the human world leads to many misunderstandings and the villains are also used for comic relief. The script is full of witty lines, especially the dialogue between Pinkelbert and Ponkel. It is a shame this film is hardly ever shown on television.

8 out of 10

Unfortunately, I could not, because I am not Dutch, but German. In Germany, Dick Laan's books are known as well; Pinkeltje's German name is "Pünkelchen", most likely because of an unwanted second meaning of the original name ...

To my knowledge, this film hasn't ever been dubbed, which is a huge loss in my opinion. Gladly I am also a collector of foreign dramatized audio books, hence I had the lucky occasion to know about the "Pinkeltje hoorspel", which was an 55-minute adaptation on LP from the film, which I obtained later, too. This film is much more beautiful than most so-called children's classics I have watched. Wieteke van Dort is brilliant, and incredibly cute as Pinkeltje's wife "Pinkelotje". Some nice puns, of course, are only possible in the original language: for instance, the balloon, by means of which Pinkeltje and his wife fly to their own author Dick Laan (heart-warmingly played by 62-year-old Bob de Lange, who, by the way, acted in his very last role, only few months before he sadly passed away in December 1978!) is called HEEN EN WEER BALLON. This cannot be translated without loss of the pun, as Dutch "heen en weer" means "back and forth", but "weer" also means "weather" as a second meaning.

The story is fairly nifty and, thank goodness, not too trivial: One of the Pinkels, Pinkelbaron Krikhaar (Lex Goudsmit), has been missing for several weeks, hence the other Pinkels try to find him. Through a pair of magic "dreaming glasses", Pinkeltje is able to see one his long-lost fellow, pitifully locked up in a hamster's cage. When he hands the glasses over to his wife, she is lucky to spot a telephone located next to the cage, and Pinkeltje manages to take one of Dick's "heavy" pencils and even write down the number which Pinkelotje reads out loud for him. The number is given to Dick Laan, by means of which he now manages to figure out where the crooks live who had locked up Pinkelbaron Krikhaar in a cage. Dick takes Pinkeltje and Pinkelotje in his car, stopping at a joke article store - buying ... well it is up to you to find that out what he bought there. This thingamajig is used at the crooks' house to wreak havoc amongst them and hopefully (?) free all Pinkels...?

All in all, a beautiful film with good acting (also on the baddies' site, who - typically - act as complete wallies) and a nice story. Devoid of any violence and recommended for ALL kids! (who understand Dutch, that is)