Pippi on the Run (1970 / 1977)

One day when I was in the fifth or sixth grade, I was at the Lewis A. Ray Public Library using their incredibly neat microfiche machine to see all the books in the Cobb system. Well, all the books that I knew to look for, anyway. I seem to remember that this largely consisted of me verifying that every book I’d already read or owned was in the system for other people to read. So I put the “authors” page where Astrid Lindgren could be found under the glass, and confirmed that they had all three of the Pippi Longstocking books.

They had four. There was a fourth book called Pippi on the Run which not only I’d never heard of, the other three books didn’t list in their “read the other books in this series” page. One of the other branches had it, and they could transfer it to ours. I’m not going to claim this was like Calvin waiting impatiently for six to eight weeks for his propeller beanie, but I was probably very cranky for the four or five days it took for this book to get from Acworth or Marietta or Antarctica or wherever it was to us in Smyrna.

When the book arrived, I’m not sure whether I was disappointed or amazed, but I was certainly surprised. After the success of the 13 episode Pippi Longstocking TV series, the producers went to work on two feature films. The first was an adaptation of Lindgren’s novel Pippi in the South Seas and the second was based on an original story that Lindgren provided them to make fairly inexpensively. The book was a hardcover photo album that told the movie’s story, with dozens of color pictures from the movie. (See comments.)

I’m also not sure whether I ever saw this movie before. I know the library showed South Seas and one and maybe both of the compilation films during their summer kiddie festivals, but maybe I saw this one before and maybe I didn’t. Who knows?

Anyway, the plot this time is that Annika and Tommy decide to run away, and their mother, because she isn’t actually a very good parent, asks Pippi to go with them and make sure they don’t get hurt on their escapades. This is Pippi Longstocking we’re talking about. Of course the kids aren’t going to get hurt, but Pippi’s also going to lose track of them while she’s going over waterfalls in a barrel, and they’re going to get their clothes eaten by cows, and Pippi’s going to build a flying car powered by rainwater and super glue that falls apart in the sky.

Pippi on the Run wasn’t released in America until 1977, in another dub job by Fred Ladd’s outfit. Bizarrely, he gets credited as the movie’s director over Olle Hellbom. The movie is certainly pretty, but it’s about as exciting as a trip to a petting zoo. I’m not kidding. This is a film that lingers over lots of footage of woodland creatures and goats, pigs, and chickens on a farm. It’s a movie for kids who are still at the age where the sight of baby horses is a fun little thrill. There’s a great bit where Ladd’s translation misidentifies badgers as ground hogs, and the fact that I’m calling that a “great bit” lets you know how dull this movie is.

Our son wasn’t as taken with this as he might have been a year earlier. Granted, this is a far weaker and simpler movie than South Seas, but outside of a few sight gags built around Pippi doing impossible things, there’s just not a lot of meat to this story, and no real sense of importance to anything that happens. There isn’t a plot; they just wander around having mild adventures until Annika and Tommy give in and want to go home. Our son did have a great laugh when the cows eat their clothes, leaving them stuck in grain sacks until Pippi can raise some money to buy them new things, but overall this is a pretty weak movie on which the franchise would end. I wish they’d have gone out on a higher note than a trip to the petting zoo!