The Enid Blyton Society

Constantin Film and Sam Film present the first German “Famous Five” film.
The filming will begin this June in Schleswig/Germany.

The film recounts the adventures of Julian, Dick, Anne, George and Timmy the dog on their first holiday together at the seaside.
In an old smugglers' cave, the children happen to overhear a radio message that refers to the abduction of George’s father Quentin. The professor has set up a laboratory on Kirrin Island where he’s doing research on a new energy generation method. Someone has obviously taken great interest in the valuable research results. But neither the police nor George’s mother Fanny believe the children. They are now on their own and discover a conspiracy that almost takes their breath away.

The adults will be played by Michael Fitz, Anna Böttcher, Gustav Peter Wöhler and Anatole Taubman. The children will be played by young talents, first of all by Valeria Eisenbart in the role of George.
The rest of the cast will be announced soon.
The film will be directed by Mike Marzuk and produced by Andreas Ulmke-Smeaton and Ewa Karlström of Sam Film.

Hi Timmy 254. The film sounds quite interesting. I hope they keep the characters faithful to Miss Blyton's, though !! I look forward to viewing it in the near future, assuming it is released on DVD.

Regards
No6

Sounds interesting although they are obviously taking some liberties with the storyline. The first holiday together would imply Five on a Treasure Island whereas the laboratory on the island implies Five on Kirrin Island Again. As to the old smugglers cave that could either be Smugglers Top or Down to the Sea. It's good to see that a major company is taking some time, trouble and expense to do a Blyton film in this day and age though.

Thanks for letting us know, Timmy 254. It sounds worth a look.

Timmy254

Many thanks for letting us know. It sounds exciting! I presume
it is a film length story which should allow for proper character development
and plenty of suspense. It sounds like they are taken elements from
several books to produce a first class story. Please try and keep us
up-to-date with developments. Don't know what we would do without you!

Francis

Hallo,

in the German Forum to the Famous Five Fanpage exists also a Thread to the Film to the news:
http://108500.forumromanum.com/member/f ... 7.13..html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

There you can find several Fotos etc. e.g.


Source: http://www.fchsh.de/sites/de_1916.asp?n ... o=homepage

https://sites.google.com/site/enidblyto ... 0Alpha.JPG
Doodle in Lego, I have made from the filmset, last Tuesday, I hace hat a film extra job on this day there (-:

https://sites.google.com/site/enidblyto ... lphaII.JPG
Doodle in Lego, I have made from the filmset, last Tuesday, I hace hat a film extra job on this day there, it was interesting (-:


http://www.abendblatt.de/kultur-live/ki ... orden.html


Source http://www.kn-online.de/schleswig_holst ... Arnis.html


Source http://www.kn-online.de/schleswig_holst ... Arnis.html

another newspaper article with pcitures: http://www.ln-online.de/nachrichten/nor ... 3163695/2/

A Video of a German TV Channel, from the filmset: http://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/s ... 10355.html

The Frontpage of the Famous Five Fanpage with some informations to the film: http://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/s ... 10355.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; with a small not complete translation under http://www.fuenffreundefanpage.at/en_ffreunde.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Youtube-channel with clips of the dog of the film (is named Coffey) :
http://www.youtube.com/user/AussieCoffey

A picture of Schleswig and a secon picture of it --- a lot of parts are filmed there.

It do not know, wheter there will exists an English subtitle or (what is clear -- not possible) a dubbing of it.

A news which i like very much is that Marcus Harris (Julian) will play in it a role and this not silent! He plays a hotel porter.



with friendly greetings from Germany, Soenke Rahn

oh my typing errors: e.g. hace hat = have had

Thanks very much for the information, Soenke. I haven't clicked on all the links yet but I did take a look at the Lego scene - good fun! I like the idea of Marcus Harris making an appearance in the film!

Yes, the Lego-stuff is my personal fun stuff, but it is still under construction. Yesterday, I have made Julian and in the moment I enlarge the Lego area again. If I have finished it, I will use it for a little report of the day I was in Schleswig. If there will be news to the film, I hope I will not forget it, to post it in this forum. --- The Thing with Marcus Harris, I like also very much. He was filmed in his role on June 27, this is the information I have from the German Famous Five Forum. On day later, I was in Schleswig, but not seen him there. --- with friendly greetings, Soenke Rahn

Interesting Newspaper-Article in: http://www.shz.de/nachrichten/lokales/f ... eil-2.html (Flensburger Tageblatt -- July 6), with a new picture. with friendly greetings, Soenke Rahn

A next pictures to the new film:

http://www.kinofilmtrailer.de/wp-conten ... 00x199.jpg

in a better quality there:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qoNb7Ba302A/T ... 2529-4.jpg

and a second:


http://www.kinofilmtrailer.de/wp-conten ... 00x199.jpg

in a better quality there:
http://b30.spielfiln.de/101050-4/fuenf- ... h-gmbh.jpg

with friendly greetings from Germany, Soenke Rahn

Lucky Star wrote:Sounds interesting although they are obviously taking some liberties with the storyline. The first holiday together would imply Five on a Treasure Island whereas the laboratory on the island implies Five on Kirrin Island Again.

I expect they're doing as the '70s TV series did: adding elements of Treasure Island to Kirrin Island Again.

Anita Bensoussane wrote:I like the idea of Marcus Harris making an appearance in the film!

It's good that they've managed to include a link to the '70s TV series, which was very popular in Germany (as was the '90s version). But why not Friedrich von Thun? He's a native German actor.

The pictures suggest that they're setting this in the present day. I'm not against updating as such, provided the story is told well (the 1990 Castle of Adventure is an excellent example), but surely nowadays it brings narrative problems... Children today all carry mobile phones, but where's the adventure if the Five can just call for help at the touch of a button, or locate their exact whereabouts via a handy i-Phone app?!

Children today all carry mobile phones, but where's the adventure if the Five can just call for help at the touch of a button, or locate their exact whereabouts via a handy i-Phone app?!

Sorry to be a spoil-sport, but have you ever been caught somewhere without coverage, such as a tunnel deep below the sea?
I see your point, and I agree it's not alway a great benefit if a story is updated.
But to call a spade a spade, I seriously doubt that present-day children - and it's them the film is for - would appreciate a 'period' film.
Sad, I think. It would help them to get a different approach to history which usually is good as history tells you a lot about yourself. If you are ready for it, that is. And that's the problem, the Five are too close to many people to seem 'living history'.

Cheers


Dick Kirrin

Dick Kirrin wrote:I seriously doubt that present-day children - and it's them the film is for - would appreciate a 'period' film.

I wonder why? When I was a child I loved period films, dramas and TV series. Favourites included The Phoenix and the Carpet , The Enchanted Castle, The Railway Children, The Secret Garden, Heidi, Little House on the Prairie, The Waltons, The Little Silver Trumpet, Carrie's War, The Peppermint Pig, The Box of Delights, Robinson Crusoe, A Traveller in Time and What Katy Did.

I just asked my 15-year-old daughter what she would prefer and she said that if she loved a book from a certain period of history she would expect a film or TV adaptation to be set in that period and would be disappointed if it wasn't.

I too loved period films. Some of my favourite stories were things like Robin Hood, King Arthur and Treasure Island. I would have been massively disappointed to see them set in modern times. I loved the "old fashioned" style of writing and speaking that those books contained. We shall have to wait and see how this film turns out. If it interests a new gemeration of children in Blyton then that in itself will be a good thing.