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(http://www.amazon.com/Smurfs-Magic-Flute-Georges-Atlas/dp/B00A9T9882/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1422308868&sr=1-2&keywords=smurfs+and+the+magic+flute) Tag: Visual edit |
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* Fabulous Films released the film on both DVD and Blu-Ray Disc in the United Kingdom for Region 2 players, using the United Kingdom English dub. The same DVD was also released in North America through Shout! Factory. |
* Fabulous Films released the film on both DVD and Blu-Ray Disc in the United Kingdom for Region 2 players, using the United Kingdom English dub. The same DVD was also released in North America through Shout! Factory. |
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* Canadian video distributor Imavision released a dual English/French DVD of the film, using the United Kingdom English dub. |
* Canadian video distributor Imavision released a dual English/French DVD of the film, using the United Kingdom English dub. |
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| − | * [[Apple iTunes]] and [[Google Play]] has the movie available for download, using the United Kingdom English dub. |
+ | * [[Apple iTunes]], [[Amazon and [[Google Play]] has the movie available for download, using the United Kingdom English dub. |
* Netflix also has the United Kingdom English dub available for streaming. |
* Netflix also has the United Kingdom English dub available for streaming. |
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Revision as of 21:48, 26 January 2015
"The Smurfs And The Magic Flute" was an animated feature film developed by Belvision Studios that was first released in Europe in 1976 and later in America in 1983, when it was dubbed into English. Because it was developed by a production company other than Hanna-Barbera and it does not tie in with any of the stories featured in the Smurfs cartoon show, it is considered a "non-canonical" Smurf story.
Summary
The story starts with a jousting tournament that The King is holding, which includes his champion, Sir Johan, besting himself against Lord Spottlebottom the Black Knight. Though the Black Knight is fearsome, Sir Johan easily dismounts him, giving his friend the court jester and would-be minstrel Peewit something to celebrate. As he finds the mandolin that The King hid in the place that he hopes Peewit would not find, he begins his song of friendship, which slowly drives people away, and which somehow causes a storm to break out over the castle. Sir Johan bravely sees Peewit safely back home and says goodnight as the two of them go to sleep.
The next morning, a traveling merchant pays The King a visit, hoping to sell something to his intended customer Peewit. As The King and Sir Johan find out, the merchant is selling various and strange musical instruments, which he demonstrates much to the chagrin of The King and Sir Johan. Although they both couldn't permit the merchant to sell any of his wares (basically to keep Peewit from acquiring any instrument due to his rather off-key playing) and eventually send him off, the merchant accidentally leaves behind a small flute, which The King and Sir Johan keep out of Peewit's sight when they find it before Peewit did. The King attempts to burn the flute in the fireplace, but it ends up producing deadly green smoke that fills his bedchamber that requires many hands to put out the fire.
Peewit finds the flute The King tried to destroy, discovering that it has six holes in it. After cleaning it out, he tries playing it to a passerby. While he was somehow able to play a beautiful tune from the flute, it also causes the passerby to uncontrollably dance. Peewit at first thinks it was a joke, but when he tries the flute on Lady Prattle, she also dances uncontrollably. He then realizes that the flute is truly magic. Soon he starts playing the flute all throughout the castle, and anyone who was in earshot of its tune began to dance uncontrollably -- even a troop of soldiers who meticulously march around the castle. He eventually shows The King and Sir Johan the flute's power when Peewit tries it out on them. However, when Peewit again plays it before a group of soldiers that he had used it on before, the soldiers end up passing out from the extended playing. Sir Johan begins to realize that the flute could be rather dangerous and tries to get it out of Peewit's hands, but he refuses to give it up.
Meanwhile, a passing thief named Matthew McCreep, who overhears what the flute could do from the passing merchant who lost it, decides to track it down to where it was lost. Befriending the young court jester during a dinner in the king's court with the minstrels playing a song, Matthew McCreep pretends to show interest in hearing Peewit play the magic flute. Immediately after hearing it, he tricks Peewit into letting him play a tune from the magic flute, leaving Peewit unconscious and tied up while he flees and begins using the magic flute to rob the townsfolk. An enraged Peewit runs throughout the castle with an ax, hoping to get his hands on Matthew, when he runs into The King and Sir Johan, telling them what happened. Realizing how dangerous the flute is, The King sends Sir Johan and Peewit to go after Matthew McCreep. For days they go searching after Matthew, asking various people they run into if they have seen a man with a flute, but they all haven't seen him -- until they come across a man in the road who had just seen him and had been robbed. The two ride off until they find him with his cart full of stolen property, ready to get their hands on him, until Matthew uses the flute on them, rendering them unconscious while he escapes.
Realizing that the flute is indeed magic, Sir Johan and Peewit seek after their friend Homnibus to see if there is any way to remove its power. Homnibus says the only ones who know about the flute are the Smurfs, and there is no known way to find their village except through a technique called "hypnokinesis", which would enable people to travel without actually leaving where they were. Sir Johan and Peewit allow Homnibus to put them to sleep and to use "hypno-kinesis" to transport them as close to the Smurf Village as he could. Soon, waking up in the Smurf forest, they encounter a single Smurf who leads them straight to their village where they meet its leader Papa Smurf, who then introduces the two humans to the rest of the Smurfs, explaining how each of them are like their names.
While Papa Smurf tells them there is no way they could remove the magic from the flute, he does offer them the solution of making another flute -- a task that requires cutting down a giant oak tree to get to the heart of the tree for the wood needed to make another flute. While this takes two days, with Sir Johan and Peewit patiently waiting and enduring the antics of the various Smurfs, plus Peewit's failed attempt to speak in Smurf, they succeed in getting the second flute completed. As the Smurfs celebrate their accomplishment with a party, Papa Smurf is about to give the two humans the second flute when Homnibus pulls them back too soon and is unable to send them back to the village, suffering a headache that puts him to sleep. Meanwhile, Matthew meets his old friend Earl Flatbroke and offers him part of the stolen valuables in exchange for help in gathering up an army to start a war and to take over The King's kingdom.
Fortunately, the Smurfs find Homnibus' hovel and deliver the second flute straight to Sir Johan and Peewit, who then ride off to the port city of Terminac. However, by this time, Matthew McCreep has gone over to the island off the port of Terminac in order to raise up an army for his friend Earl Flatbroke. Sir Johan tricks Earl Flatbroke into going over to that island by writing a letter that supposedly came from Matthew McCreep's hand, following him on board a ship with he and Peewit disguised as sailors and some of the Smurfs secretly stowing away. Upon reaching the island, Earl Flatbroke meets up with Matthew and shows him the letter that he supposedly wrote, which raises up their suspicions. As they head back to the dock, Sir Johan and Peewit meet up with both Matthew McCreep and Earl Flatbroke. Peewit and Matthew break out with their flutes and started playing tunes toward each other, hoping that either of them would get exhausted, causing whoever listened to their tunes to dance uncontrollably. Eventually, the both of them became deadlocked in a musical duel, and getting exhausted, Peewit and Matthew stop playing in order to catch their breaths, giving Peewit the opportunity to knock Matthew unconscious with a short burst from his flute.
With both flutes now in his possession, as well as Matthew McCreep and Earl Flatbroke bound and ready to be turned over to the law, Peewit was thinking of keeping both flutes when Sir Johan tells him that they should both be returned to the Smurfs so that they won't cause anymore trouble. This inspires Peewit to carve out a fake flute which he intends to hand over to the Smurfs as one of the real flutes. Upon returning to the kingdom, Sir Johan and Peewit hand over the two flutes to the Smurfs, who then take them back to their village. But then, behind everyone's back, Peewit begins to play a flute which he thought was a real flute...only to realize to his dismay (and everyone else's curiosity and relief) that it was the fake one that he carved out.
Background Information
- This animated movie is based on the original comic book story by the same name, which at the time of its creation had a very primitive appearance of the Smurfs, since this would be their first introduction. Like all Smurf stories Peyo had created up until "The Smurfette" and "Romeo And Smurfette" and eventually up into the 1980s, this story and the movie it was based on did not feature Smurfette
- The movie has been dubbed into English twice, once for the American audiences and another time for the United Kingdom audiences. Some notable differences between the two dubs are:
- The music number performed in the minstrels in the king's court is "Life Is A Voyage" in the United States English dub and "Gentle Lady" in the United Kingdom English dub.
- The characters are given different names.
- Peewit is called William in the United Kingdom English dub.
- Sir Johan is occasionally called Sir John in both English dubs.
- Matthew McCreep is called Matthew Oilycreep in the United Kingdom English dub.
- Greedy Smurf is called Sweety Smurf in the United States English dub.
- Handy Smurf is called Handyman Smurf in the United States English dub.
- Clumsy Smurf is called Congy Smurf in the United Kingdom English dub.
- Grouchy Smurf is called Grumpy Smurf in the United Kingdom English dub.
- Actor Smurf is called Festive Smurf in the United Kingdom English dub. (It's most likely that he's supposed to be Reveler Smurf according to the original French vocal track.)
- Hefty Smurf is called Strongman Smurf in the United Kingdom English dub.
- Though none of the voice actors from the cartoon show did any of the voices for this movie in the United States English dub, sound-alike versions of Frank Welker's Hefty and Bill Callaway's Clumsy do appear on other Smurf characters featured in it.
- In syndicated televised versions of the movie, the Smurfs' party sequence, which originally took place after the completion of the flute and just before Sir Johan and Peewit return back to Homnibus, was shifted to the beginning of the movie, right after the jousting tournament and Peewit's song of friendship, with some narration added.
- For the Italian dub of the film, the original music for the Smurfs' party sequence is replaced by another song, sung to the tune of "Yankee Doodle". Also for this dub, the rest of the songs are left either partially or entirely in French.
- The two Brazilian Portuguese dubs leave all the songs in English, except for Peewit's ballad in the 2nd dub.
- In the European Spanish dub, only two songs are dubbed: "Personality" and "Peewit Wants A Smurf". The rest of the songs are left in English.
- Jokey Smurf does not appear anywhere in the movie, despite promotional literature and advertisements that say otherwise. (However, a brief shot of a random Smurf laughing can be seen at the end of "Just Like Their Names", possibly hinting that it could be him.) Also, the Greedy Smurf that appears in the movie is based on the original comic book version instead of the cartoon show version that wears a chef's hat (which is actually an analog of the original comic book's Cook/Baker Smurf character), and, despite what is illustrated in the movie poster, all the young Smurfs are rather identical in appearance with each other.
- Peyo, the creator of the Smurfs, oversaw the production of this movie in its original non-English version at Brussels' Belvision Studios in 1975.
- For some strange reasons, several scenes in the UK dub have the characters speaking with inaudible dialogue, most notably during the Smurfs' party sequence and with Johan and Peewit at the end of "It's A Smurf, Smurf, Smurf". This is also the case with several foreign dubs, with the only exceptions being the German, Dutch, and United States English dub.
- It was not until the success of Hanna-Barbera's Smurfs cartoon that The Smurfs And The Magic Flute began to gain widespread attention: in the early 1980s, Stuart R. Ross, head of First Performance Pictures Corporation, acquired the American rights to the film for US $1,000,000. In doing so, he sold those rights to Tribune Entertainment (television), Vestron Video (VHS), and Atlantic Releasing (theatrical).
- The music score was written by Michel Legrand, then an Oscar winner for Summer of '42 and the original Thomas Crown Affair.
- This movie grossed over US $11 million out of a maximum 432 venues, the highest on record for a non-Disney production until The Care Bears Movie in 1985.
- This was originally billed as "the Smurfs' one and only full-length motion picture...ever!" It is now followed by the release of the 2011 Smurfs movie by Sony Pictures Animation.
- Dutch singer Vader Abraham (Father Abraham) was asked to make a promotional song for the movie in 1977.
Video Releases
- The Video Collection released the film on VHS in the United Kingdom in the 1980's.
- Vestron Video released the film on VHS in the United States in the 1980s, while Goodtimes Entertainment re-released it in the 1990s
- It was also released on laserdisc format.
- Televista did a limited low-budget release of the United States English dub on DVD in 2008, with Papa Smurf's voice re-recorded by a different voice actor.
- Fabulous Films released the film on both DVD and Blu-Ray Disc in the United Kingdom for Region 2 players, using the United Kingdom English dub. The same DVD was also released in North America through Shout! Factory.
- Canadian video distributor Imavision released a dual English/French DVD of the film, using the United Kingdom English dub.
- Apple iTunes, [[Amazon and Google Play has the movie available for download, using the United Kingdom English dub.
- Netflix also has the United Kingdom English dub available for streaming.
External Links
- The Smurfs And The Magic Flute at Wikipedia.com