Though ostensibly marketed to family audiences with a G rating, The Pied Piper is an uncharacteristically grim and brutal offering from Goodtimes Enterprises, a UK-based production company during the 1970s whose films like Performance, Lisztomania, and That'll Be the Day were largely conceived as star vehicles for music performers. The big name in this particular film is Donovan, a Scottish folk-pop singer best known for 1960s standards like "Hurdy Gurdy Man," "Atlantis," and "Sunshine Superman." His presence in the film is something of a sticking point for many modern viewers, but in fact the small numbers of spare, haunting ditties he performs in the film work well with the period setting, and while he'll never be confused with a master thespian, he acquits himself well enough with his one-dimensional role. The real acting demands rest with the British pros like Pleasence, Hurt, and Hordern, who chew into their meaty roles with gusto. The dark undertones of the original story (made famous by the likes of the Brothers Grimm and Robert Browning), essentially a metaphor for the loss of multiple children to a disease epidemic or tragic accident (elaborated upon most tantalizingly in Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter), are certainly not sugarcoated in this version, which presents unflinching depictions of the ravages of the plague, a horrific wedding banquet scene with hordes of rats bursting from a grandiose wedding cake, and a harrowing climactic burning at the stake for one sympathetic character which left many unprepared viewers shell-shocked. The end result would actually make a perfect double bill with Ken Russell's The Devils from the previous year, as they share very similar storyline trajectories, visual schemes, and pessimistic views on the poisonous relationship between politics and religion. In fact, this film is a perfect example of the mainstream fallout from the notoriously violent cinematic year of 1971, which found such brutal offerings as A Clockwork Orange, Straw Dogs and Macbeth invading theaters around the world. This one may not be as graphic, but this is easily the grittiest and most brutal "children's" film until it was eventually usurped by Dragonslayer.
Though it was widely distributed by Paramount, The Pied Piper only did marginal business and disappeared from circulation almost immediately. It rarely appeared on television and became known primarily through word of mouth, and a fleeting Japanese laserdisc release was its only home video edition for three decades. Nevertheless, public curiosity continued to mount as its director, Jacques Demy, underwent a significant critical reappraisal in the wake of a resoundingly successful restoration and theatrical rerelease of his most famous film, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. His subsequent French-language films like Young Girls of Rochefort, Lola, Bay of Angels, and his other major fairy tale adaptation, Donkey Skin, all found new generations of followers with the full participation of the late director's wife, director Agnes Varda. However, Demy's two English-language films, this one and 1969's experimental Model Shop, have had a more difficult time due to the lack of interest from their studio owners.
Paramount's aversion to sublicensing its films to other companies eventually took a welcome turn as it began shopping out its back catalog of unreleased titles, with Legend Films snagging some key cult films to be issued in brand new anamorphic transfers. Incredibly, The Pied Piper was one of the first to make it out of the gate, and the results are quite satisfying all around in terms of the presentation. The DVD itself is bare bones (a shame as Varda and Donovan have both supported the film in recent years), but the transfer looks terrific (though the opening titles have always had a dupey-looking quality-don't let those first three minutes fool you). Decent repertory prints have been difficult to come by, but Paramount finally struck a much-needed new one for limited showings in 2007, which appears to be the same source used here. Demy's trademark aesthetic concerns are still in evidence here, from the integration of songs into the narrative to the bittersweet and ultimately unrequited romance at its core which forms the basis of the haunting final shots. The mono soundtrack sounds clear and solid overall, making one also pine for a soundtrack release which sadly never came. Still, as this unexpected and richly rewarding DVD release proves, anything is still possible. For more information about The Pied Piper, visit Legend Films. To order The Pied Piper, go to TCM Shopping
by Nathaniel Thompson
