A Boy Named Charlie Brown

This groundbreaking animated film brought the bittersweet and somewhat bleak humor of Schultz's "Peanuts" comic strip to the big screen, with beautiful, lush artwork that has probably never been duplicated. Memorable scenes include Schroeder's piano concert; Snoopy ice-skating in Central Park; the New York City spelling bee (where the famous "wah-wah-wah" voice approves or disapproves of contestants' spellings); and a showstopping rendition of "The Star-Spangled Banner," complete with psychedelic red, white, and blue imagery. A wonderful cult classic.

The PEANUTS films, coming from a student of international cinema, have contained some of the truest statements I have borne witness to in my life. If you were to really sit down and listen to what these characters say to each other you would be surprised at how much you can truly relate to them. A BOY NAMED CHARLIE BROWN is the best of them because it does the best job combining the artistic with the humanistic. Even though this is a movie that is defined through a series of seemingly unrelated moments (a fantasized hockey game, a spelling bee, a beautiful performance on piano by Schroeder, a baseball game) this only adds to the closeness we feel toward the characters. The tragic sequence in the Film where Linus expresses remorse for lending Charlie Brown his literal "security blanket" and seeks to find it is a sequence that would make Bergman proud! I rarely recommend movies that I truly like but I have to say that A BOY NAMED CHARLIE BROWN is a film for everyone!

I saw this film first in 1969. I thought it was a cute little film then, as now.

This is the first Peanuts feature, and the last show using Peter Robbins as the voice of Charlie Brown.

In this film, Charlie Brown, our hero, has finally proved that he can do something right. He wins the spelling bee in his class. All the kids treat him with their usual lack of tact. He studies really hard and wins the championship at his school and gets to go to the "city" to be in the "National Elimination Spelling Bee" I will not spoil the ending.

Vince Guaraldi, the composer of the music for the six previous TV specials, is back for this one. There are new arrangements of the old music, plus several new songs by Rod McKuen. Guaraldi did not do the music for the next feature, Snoopy Come Home (1972) and that film suffers because of this.

Schroeder has a beautiful salute to Beethoven in this film. While the music plays, we see some beautiful abstract scenes and colors on the screen that look fantastic in Technicolor. Sadly, I have seen this sequence cut from TV showings.

Snoopy has a wonderful sequence while he and Linus are wandering around the city looking for his blanket that he sent with Charlie Brown for good luck. Snoopy discovers an ice skating rink and pretends that he is in a hockey match while he skates around the rink. He also has an encounter with the Red Baron that has some of the same animation that was used in "He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown! on TV.

One thing that I like about this film is when the closing credits are rolling, you get to see animated images of most of the principal creators of this film. Their names are on the right side of the screen, and their images appear on the left. Things like that entice me to sit through the credits instead of walking out as soon as they start.

If you have never seen this film, by all means rent it and see what you have been missing!

Saw this film in a theater when it was first released and it has stuck with me all these years. Nothing like the Disney films of that period, it truly inspired most cutting edge animation that exists today (from "The Simpsons" to "South Park"). The TV specials had already animated the tiny Peanut kids who philosophized like ivy league psychologists, but the big screen dabbled in artistic compositions of color and abstract art. Simply a treat. A Fantasia for the Sixties! The sequels never got so gutsy.

A BOY NAMED CHARLIE BROWN has got to be the ultimate Peanuts animation ever made! It's so epic, and it does a great job of showcasing the original Peanuts characters, especially the central character, Charlie Brown! It told a tragic story of Charlie Brown, the milquetoast little boy who works hard to be the best (trying everything from kite-flying to baseball to even competing at a spelling bee), so that he can be loved and respected by his friends, when, of course, he usually loses and his friends berate him. And only his best friend Linus tries to help Charlie Brown succeed in life. There's also Snoopy, Charlie Brown's wonderful pet beagle, who does his usual crazy thing, from playing a WWI Flying Ace to skating on ice. Aside from creator Charles Schulz's screenplay, the great music score and songs by legendary jazz musician Vince Guaraldi, conductor John Scott Trotter, and gifted musician/poet/singer Rod McKuen really shines, and is the best score of any animated Peanuts project since the scores from all of the previous animated TV specials (only with more dimension)! It really needs a CD soundtrack! There's also some "artsy-fartsy" moments throughout the movie, including the Peanuts Gang saluting the National Anthem, Charlie Brown and Linus practicing "I before E, except after C," Schroeder playing Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata (2nd movt.) on his piano, and Snoopy skating at the Rockerfeller Center in NY, where Charlie Brown goes for the national spelling bee, but these are great images that make this movie all the more unusual! This movie made its premiere at the Radio City Music Hall in December of '69 (incidentally Rod McKuen performed one of the movie's songs months earlier at his birthday concert at Carnegie Hall, which can be purchased on a CD called "Rod McKuen: At Carnegie Hall"). There was also a documentary of the same name (the soundtrack of which is available on CD), which was transformed into CHARLIE BROWN AND CHARLES SCHULZ the same year this movie was released.

In summary, A BOY NAMED CHARLIE BROWN is the best of the Peanuts movies, and the best Peanuts animated project since A CHARLIE BROWN CHRISTMAS (the first Peanuts TV special)! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!