Gnomes (film)
| Gnomes | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Jack Zander |
| Written by | Wil Huygen (book text) Rien Poortvliet (book ill.) Sam Moore (written by) Maurice Rapf (written by) |
| Produced by | Jack Zander Thomas W. Moore (exec.) Anne E. Upson (exec.) |
| Narrated by | Lee Richardson |
| Music by | Neil Warner (music) Phyllis Levinson (lyrics) Larry Levinson (producer) |
Release date | November 11, 1980 |
Running time | 45 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Gnomes is an American 1980 animated film, based on the book of the same name by the Dutch Wil Huygen and Rien Poortvliet.[1] The movie was nominated for an Emmy in 1981 for Outstanding Animated Program.
Several years after this film was released, the television series, The World of David the Gnome was created, which was also based on the same novel.
Plot
This made for TV movie is all about a family of forest gnomes who live together in their home under a tree. The family consists of a father, mother, grandfather, older son Tor, and a set of young twins. The movie mainly concerns itself with Tor, his upcoming marriage to his fiancee Lisa, and his family's preparations for the wedding. The gnome family busies itself with decorating and preparing for the festivities, meanwhile a family of trolls plan on ruining the wedding for the gnomes. The troll family consists of a dumb troll father, a bossy mother troll who's fond of wearing a snake in her hair and smoking, her two bumbling older sons, and a young troll child affectionately called "Runt".
Adding to the wedding mishaps is Tor's uncle Kostya who came all the way from Siberia to crash the wedding ceremony, he makes mischief by adding extra alcohol to Grandpa's special punch, and making some inappropriate advances to the mother of the bride.
The movie also contains a handful of vignettes which use still illustrations from the original book and narration to explain some of the facts about the different sorts of gnomes, and what sorts of duties gnomes perform to help the creatures they live amongst.
Airing
It was once common to see this film played on cable television movie channels, however it has since become very hard to find as it is not readily available for sale on DVD or VHS.
Copyright status
It was quite popular in Sweden where it has a fairly large fan base, but due to its unclear copyright status (after the production company shut down) further viewing was deemed impossible by Sveriges Television until the status was resolved. Member of the Swedish Riksdag Karl Sigfrid aimed a written question to Minister for Justice Beatrice Ask how this and similar issues should be resolved.[2]
DVD releases
Despite no official news about the copyright status, a DVD release was announced for Sweden set for release on December 1, 2010. The distributor is the Norwegian company CCV.
References
- ^ O'Connor, John J. (1980-11-11). "TV: Animated 'Gnomes'and Saturn Rendezvous". The New York Times. Retrieved 2011-05-31.
- ^ Karl Sigfrid. "Fråga 2007/08:968 Filmen Trolltyg i tomteskogen" Riksdag webpage 14 March 2008. Received 21 June 2008
External links
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