Emil and the Detectives

I wasn't too sure at the beginning but it got better and better. If you like Home Alone you should like this. Classic Disney comedy.

I stumbled on this entry and was glad I did! I recall watching this when it was broadcast on "Disney's Wonderful World of Color" in September 1966 when I was five and have never seen it since. I recall the Berlin locations and being fascinated by the entire enterprise. Maybe I would have a different opinion if I saw it now, but I recalled liking it as a kid.

Back when I was in school taking high school Spanish, this book in a Spanish translation was a text used in my course. We read it for about a third of the semester. Of course it was called Emilio Y Los Detectivos.

So of course I had to go see Emil and the Detectives when it was out in the theater and I found it to be a very good Disney production of the story. To make it cinematically viable parts of the story were emphasized and others were not.

Walter Slezak looked like he was having a great old time playing the master criminal who just can't get good help. Young Bryan Russell is on a train to Berlin to visit his grandmother and he had a sum of money which unfortunately attracts the attention of Heinz Schubert one of two lugnuts who are Slezak's henchmen. Slezak, Schubert, and Peter Ehrlich are planning a bank robbery, a tunnel job. Slezak is understandably upset that Schubert would risk arrest for a petty theft and thereby put the bank job in jeopardy.

But it's no petty theft to Russell who falls in with a gang of Berlin street urchins headed by Roger Mobley. Since this is a Disney film, I think you can guess the rest of it. The kids deal with the crooks in their own unique way.

I remember it was a fun movie and I did so enjoy Walter Slezak in the role of the master criminal done in by kids. I do so hope TCM runs this at some point.

During the 1960s and 70s, Disney released a lot of live action films. They were clearly aimed at kids, as if you watch them as an adult, many of them are simply awful. While I wouldn't call "Emil and the Detectives" awful, it is tough going for adults because Disney clearly was thinking only of kids when it inserted all sorts of goofy sound effects and made a film featuring a large cast of kids...some of which weren't very good actors.

I have no idea how closely this story follows the original story by Erich Kästner. I do know, however, that his story was very popular and they made at least six film versions of the "Emil and the Detectives".

The story begins with Emil about to get on the bus for Berlin. His mother does something a bit foolish...she pins a letter with money in it inside his jacket...and then says loud enough for a nearby thug to hear, that he has the money and should give it to his grandmother when he arrives. Naturally, a scum-bag overhears it and ends up stealing the money. But Emil is a very determined kid...and follows the man. Along the way, he also gets help from another boy who has a group of friends he calls his 'detectives' and they go about following the man and his compatriots. Why? Because in this weird world, the police don't listen to children when they report crimes!

So what's good about the film? Well, it actually was filmed mostly in Berlin and it's nice to see the city. It's also interesting to see that some of the town is STILL in ruins almost 20 years after the war. But it also seemed very odd that almost no one had a German accent!

Overall, a mixed bag that I'd rate a 6 or perhaps 7 for kids and a 4 for adults. If your kids want to watch it, it's harmless entertainment, albeit a bit dark in places. But if you are an adult, you might want to have a book or handheld video game handy so you want pay attention to this instead of the film as the kids watch this one.

One of the most dreadful adaptations of a book I've seen in a long time. Disney took the delightful and touching 1929 novel by Erich Kästner and turned it into something utterly ridiculous. In the first half-minute I knew something was going to be off when they revealed straight away who the robber was for certain, thus destroying any sense of mystery and tension the book had. Moreover they made the Grundeis character so grossly unbelievable as a person, it was hardly watchable. And the detectives...all the charm and comradery of the group of boys who help Emil in the book was lost in this film. In the film, they were basically hired for a tenner.