Pippi in the South Seas (1970)

With the help of her friends Tommy and Annika, Pippi Longstocking ventures to the South Pacific island Porto Piluse to rescue her father, who was captured by ruthless pirates.

Director:

Olle Hellbom

Writers:

Fred Ladd, Astrid Lindgren (manuscript)

Stars:

Inger Nilsson, Maria Persson, Pär Sundberg

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Inger Nilsson	...	Pippi Långstrump
Maria Persson	...	Annika
Pär Sundberg	...	Tommy
Beppe Wolgers	...	Kapten Långstrump
Martin Ljung	...	Jocke med kniven
Jarl Borssén	...	Blod-Svente (as Jarl Borsén)
Alfred Schieske	...	Innkeeper
Wolfgang Völz	...	Oscar
Nikolaus Schilling	...	Kalle
Staffan Hallerstam	...	Marko
Öllegård Wellton	...	Annika's mother
Fredrik Ohlsson	...	Annika's father
Tor Isedal	...	Pedro
Håkan Serner	...	Franko

Storyline

With their parents on vacation, Tommy and Annika spend time with their wonderful friend Pippi Longstocking at her cottage Villa Villekulla, until she finds a bottle with a message from her father Captain Efraim Longstocking, who warns her that he was captured by a band of evil pirates led by Blood-Svente and Jock the Knife, who hold him prisoner in their castle on the island of Porto Piluse, so they can find the secret location of his treasure. Pippi, Tommy and Annika then travel to Porto Piluse to rescue her father before he is forced to reveal the whereabouts of his treasure...

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Plot Keywords:

child | supernatural power | treasure | pirate | island | 

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Taglines:

Här kommer faktiskt jag...

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Genres:

Adventure | Comedy | Drama | Family | Fantasy

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Certificate:

G

Details

Country:

Sweden West Germany

Language:

Swedish

Release Date:

1 September 1975 (USA)

Also Known As:

Pippi in the South Seas

Filming Locations:

Crane Beach, Barbados

Company Credits

Production Co:

Beta Film,Iduna Film Produktiongesellschaft,Nord Art

Technical Specs

Runtime:

86 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.55 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

This film is very loosely based upon the book "Pippi in the South Seas" ("Pippi Långstrump i Söderhavet" in Swedish), which was the third and final Pippi book. The book took place on the fictitious South Pacific island, Kurrekurredutt Island (which Pippi's father Captain Efraim Longstocking had been ruling as its chief; the now-friendly natives were originally cannibals, who were since converted by the captain, and now only hunt wild animals). In this adaptation, Kurrekurredutt is written out altogether, and the new setting is a pirate town on the island of Porto Piluse (called "Taka-Tuka-Land" in the German version; "Taka-Tuka-Land" is also the name of Kurrekurredutt Island in the German edition of the books). The two antagonist pirates Blood-Svente (Jarl Borssén) and Knife-Jocke (Martin Ljung) may have been reworkings of the pirates Buck and Jim, the villains of the book.

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Goofs

When Pippi, Tommy and Annika hide in the well, all three sit in shoulder-deep water for several hours. Yet, when they finally climb out, the kids are bone-dry.

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Quotes

Annika: Mum would not like this AT ALL.
Pippi Långstrump: Your Mum's a little odd, isn't she?

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Alternate Versions

The compressed 4-part German TV version of this film ("Pippi und die Seeräuber"/"Pippi and the Pirates") has lots of rare footage not seen even in Sweden. (These are deleted scenes from the movie.) They may have been included in each episode to patch up the running time. These include:

• A scene in Villa Villekulla at night where Pippi, Tommy, and Annika eat a whipped cream pie. Pippi then tends to Mr. Nilsson (her pet monkey), putting him to sleep, while Lilla Gubben (Pippi's horse) walks around outside Villa Villekulla.
• Pippi, Tommy, and Annika ride mules through the countryside. This is after they have landed on a mountain in their balloon-bed, and before they journey to a deserted land and come across a junkyard.
• Extended footage of Pippi calling out for the pirate Oskar on the palm tree island.
• Right after Pippi's "Sjörövar-Fabbe" ("Pirate Fabbe") song number is a scene taking place the next morning; Pippi turns out to have stood asleep at the steering wheel of the pirate ship. She hears Mr. Nilsson chattering loudly, which wakes her up (stretching and yawning), and finds that she's almost reaching Porto Piluse. This is right before she calls for Tommy and Annika to come up to deck in the final film.
• Pippi, Tommy, and Annika come ashore on the heavily-guarded Porto Piluse, sneaking onto a dock from a small boat they sailed on (from their pirate ship). They then walk over to a wall, where Pippi begins to climb. This is right before Pippi, Tommy and Annika peek up from the side of the wall bridge, unbeknownst to the pirate guard passing by.
• A scene where the still-captive Captain Longstocking tries to convince the parrot Rosalinda to climb up on his shoulder, but the bird is reluctant to do so, even biting him a little several times. He then proceeds to write another letter to Pippi.
• A scene where Pippi skips into the pirate town by herself, and into the bar, where she finds Marko scrubbing the floor, with the bartender yelling at him and kicking him. She lifts the bartender onto the wall's sword display, just like before, and reprimands him. (This may have been an alternate version of a scene from later on in the film, and would've ended with the rest of the scene in the final film of Pippi giving Marko golden coins, and Marko kissing Pippi on the cheek before gleefully leaving the bartender to rot.)
• A scene at a dock (with pirate ships in view), where Pippi sneaks behind a guard, taps him on the shoulder, and jumps into the ocean unnoticed. Then, aboard the Hoptoad (Captain Longstocking's ship, hijacked by the pirates), Blood-Svente and Jocke the Knife have a conversation while a henchman serves them food and wine. Both do a spit-take, alarmed to find Pippi climbing up on the rails of the boat. She teases them and jumps back into the water, with Svente, Jocke, and the henchmen scrambling around the boat to pursue her.
• After Pippi swims ashore to the beach where Tommy and Annika await her (continuing from the previous deleted scene), Captain Longstocking is still in the castle tower, awaiting to be sent into the dungeon below. Despite teasing from Rosalinda, he quickly writes another letter, which he sends in a bottle to Pippi (which explains why Pippi found the bottle suddenly thrown into the beach water from the castle in the final film).
• After finally settling her affair with Marko and the bar owner, Pippi skips into town, before she is ambushed by a pirate henchman. Pippi effortlessly wrestles the henchman onto the ground. She does the same to another henchman approaching the scene. She then skips further into town before the henchmen collect themselves and alert the others. This is right before Pippi attacks them with rolling barrels.
• Brief extended scenes of the pirates scrambling around town, when Pippi, Tommy, Annika, and Captain Longstocking escape Porto Piluse.
• Right before the "Kalle Theodor" song number, Tommy (wearing the same raincoat/hat Pippi wore in the number) tried his best to sail the ship at the wheel during a terrible storm, until Captain Longstocking relieves him, as he feels the boy would not be strong enough to sail the ship himself. Worn out from his vain effort, Tommy stumbles back into the cabin, where he shrugs off the raincoat and hat, and starts to eat food on the table. Pippi, Tommy, and Annika have a further conversation, before Pippi decides to steer the boat herself, leading to her song number in the final film. Tommy's predicament almost thematically mirrored the grim song of "Kalle Theodor" (about the world's youngest sailor, a little boy who was not strong enough to sail a boat, and was blown overboard by a terrible storm and drowned, and after that incident, the sea was haunted by calls of "Hei-Ho," in mourning of the boy's death). That explained why Pippi was tempted to sing it.
• A brief shot of Fridolf and his sailor crew, aboard the Hoptoad, waving and calling out to Pippi, Tommy, Annika, and Captain Longstocking (upon triumphantly reclaiming their ship from the villainous pirates).

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Connections

Follows Pippi Longstocking (1969)

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Soundtracks

Merja Mojsi
(Jocke the Knife sings a folk song with his pirate troops)
Composed by Georg Riedel
Lyrics by Astrid Lindgren
Performed by Martin Ljung

User Reviews

For really young kids only

I wanted to see one of the 1970s Pippi Longstocking movies for a long time after reading a book that listed the clumsy and shoddy attributes of one of the series entries. First, I feel I should mention that I have never read any of the Astrid Lindgren "Pippi Longstocking" books, so I have no idea how closely this film adaptation follows the original text. However, I can say that the story as told by this movie unfolds in a truly clumsy fashion. There is a plot, but the way it unfolds is in a real meandering way, almost as if it were being made up as it was going along.

As for the other parts of the movie, well, they are clumsy and shoddy as well, with frequently poor production values and misguided direction. The awkward English dubbing certainly doesn't help.

Sounds like a bad movie lover's dream, right? Well, although the clumsy and shoddy nature of the movie does sometimes provoke some giggles, it isn't aggressive enough to be so bad it's funny. Adults will just find it awkward and incompetent. As for kids (YOUNG kids), they may not mind the poor quality of the entire enterprise, but I suspect they won't be clamouring their parents to watch it a second time.