A "Wonderously Wonderful" Film with the "Strangest Cast[...] in History"

August 31, 2015 5:32 AM

There exists a film whose trailer tantalizes the brain; a film whose English dub, believed to have been created by the notorious K. Gordon Murray (his previous lies - he is described as a "flim-flammer" who ran a "kiddie circuit"), has eluded even the most fervent afficionados of strange cinema. Thanks to the people of Sweden and a translator known only as Doctor Death (and fixes from uploader Justin Sane - you can see the translation by turning on captions), you can enter the world of The Secret of Magic Island: the live-action children's film starring an all-animal cast.
posted by BiggerJ (13 comments total)

Here's the original French version Une fée… pas comme les autres and the poster. Every French person growing up in the 1970s will have recognized Saturnin le Canard in its first major role. Filmmaker Jean Tourane really liked ducks, so Saturnin got to star in his own series Les aventures de Saturnin (aka Dynamo Duck in the USA). According to to this site, such movies would not be feasible today, since the shooting was probably quite harsh on animals (that's disputed though). The script was written by Louise de Vilmorin, a quite famous and serious writer at the time (and here's a better known movie classic adapted from her work).
posted by elgilito at 6:10 AM on August 31, 2015 [3 favorites]

Brits and Canadians of a certain age will remember Hammy The Hamster/Tales Of The Riverbank.

But that is another story.
posted by The Card Cheat at 6:24 AM on August 31, 2015 [6 favorites]

Ha beat me to Tales Of The Riverbank!
posted by GallonOfAlan at 6:35 AM on August 31, 2015

I saw the French version in elementary school and it has haunted my brain ever since.
posted by seasparrow at 6:35 AM on August 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

I can't shake the feeling that every single shot of this film involved making animals unspeakably unhappy or dead.
posted by maxsparber at 8:28 AM on August 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

Plus it is spreading the meme that Space Monkeys are evil and that ducks are somehow innocent and good. This is, as they say, a vile canard.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:52 AM on August 31, 2015 [9 favorites]

Ha! elgilito beat me to it! Saturnin (it must have been shown all over the French speaking world - I saw it growing up in Canada) was a firm favorite. We all loved it - I used to have to translate it for my English friends when I was a kid. Though similar Hammy The Hamster/Tales Of The Riverbank was a much softer show, Saturnin had a mouth and often got himself into much more existential situations.
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:59 AM on August 31, 2015

This is adorable. I want to go to an animal fair.

Saturnin always made us sad because we assumed that, because he lived in France, the moment he got too old to continue playing Saturnin, that little duckling would be enjoying retirement beneath a citrus glaze...
posted by Mooseli at 9:54 AM on August 31, 2015

I can't shake the feeling that every single shot of this film involved making animals unspeakably unhappy or dead.
Some say that up to 50 ducklings were used during the filming of the Saturnin series either because they grew too fast (there were 78 episodes after all) or because they kept dying and ended up as dinner. Those times were not good for movie critters: Jacques Cousteau and his crew massacred sharks for fun, blew up a coral reef, rode tortoises and killed a young whale in The Silent World (1956). Disney filmmakers threw lemmings off a cliff for White Wilderness (1958). At least the Saturnin ducks got eaten.
posted by elgilito at 9:55 AM on August 31, 2015

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that Jaques Cousteau ate Walt Disney.
posted by maxsparber at 1:52 PM on August 31, 2015

Calling Rifftrax. Come in please, Rifftrax.
posted by nosila at 2:02 PM on August 31, 2015

This is, as they say, a vile canard.
*applauds*

If you're not feeling disturbed yet, there's always the Dogville shorts.
posted by thetortoise at 7:23 PM on August 31, 2015

nosila: They also need Herschell Gordon Lewis's two kiddy matinee films, The Magic Land of Mother Goose and Jimmy the Boy Wonder. Something Weird Video sells them and someone uploaded them to YouTube in April.
posted by BiggerJ at 9:12 PM on August 31, 2015