The Fearless Four (film)
| The Fearless Four | |
|---|---|
.jpg) "The Fearless Four" UK VHS cover | |
| Die furchtlosen Vier | |
| Directed by |
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| Produced by | Eberhard Junkersdorf |
| Written by |
|
| Based on |
Town Musicians of Bremen by Brothers Grimm |
| Starring |
Bernd Schramm Sandra Schwarzhaupt Mario Adorf Joachim Kemmer Peer Augustinski (German) James Ingram Oleta Adams B.B. King Zucchero Ian James Corlett (English) |
| Music by | Péter Wolf |
| Edited by | Uli Schön |
Production company |
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| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time |
87 minutes (German, original release) 81 minutes (English dubbed version/International releases) |
| Country | Germany[1] |
| Language |
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The Fearless Four (German: Die furchtlosen Vier) is a 1997 animated film about four funny animals that all have one thing in common: they want to sing, but can't for various reasons. Production began in March 1995 when the studio was founded. It combined traditional animation with computer animation. The film was produced by Munich Animation and released by Warner Bros. Pictures under the Warner Bros. Family Entertainment label. The film won a Bavarian Film Award for outstanding achievement in Germany.
The film was set in the near future and base lightly on the fairy tale of the Town Musicians of Bremen.
Plot
The film starts by introducing each of the four main characters. Buster, a bloodhound, doesn't want to hunt; he wants to sing. This gets him in trouble with his master, and he ends up running away. Next we meet Fred, a donkey whose master has chosen to replace him with a robot. Fred runs away from home as well.
The third character we meet is Gwendolyn, a graceful Siamese cat. (Oddly for a Siamese, she does not have blue eyes.) Her beloved owner, Aunt Wanda, has died. Aunt Wanda left behind two valuable jewels, but her heirs can't find them. They decide that the cat is hiding them, and try to kill her. She escapes, taking with her a lute which she has learned to play.
Buster and Fred each like to sing, and they decide to travel to a big city in order to see if they can become famous singers. They plan to go to Paris, but because a road sign is pointing the wrong way, they end up heading toward Bremen instead. Along the way they meet Gwendolyn, who is playing her lute and singing about how lonely she is. They invite her to join them on their journey, and she accepts. Lastly, the group meets Tortellini, a rooster who has just been thrown out of his home. He too is a singer, so he joins the others.
The four animals find Bremen to be a sad place; a large corporation called Mix Max, headed by the subtly-named Dr. Greed, essentially rules the city. There are NO SINGING signs posted all about, but the animals ignore them and begin singing for passersby on a street corner. A Mix Max official named Platini rides by; he overhears the singing animals and stops, intending to punish them, but when he hears how talented they are, he decides instead to put them to work for the company. He offers them a contract to sing a radio jingle for Mix Max. Tortellini announces that he is the group's leader (to the annoyance of the others), and he insists upon signing the contract immediately, without reading it. The singing animals are now known as The Fearless Four.
For a short time after this, things go well for The Fearless Four. They are shown singing the jingle in a recording studio and quickly becoming famous. Mix Max's main products are sausages, and sales of the sausages skyrocket due to the popularity of The Fearless Four. But soon the animals grow tired of singing the same silly jingle over and over. They approach Platini, asking to perform their own songs. He refuses; he orders them to stick to their contract. When Gwendolyn asks how long it will be before the contract expires, Platini reveals that it is perpetual. The animals realize that Mix Max essentially owns them and their voices.
Angered by this, the next time they sing the Mix Max song, they use their own lyrics, mocking the company. For this they are all thrown into a dungeon. A friendly mouse called Mozart helps them escape. Once free, they discover that Mix Max is bringing in all sorts of animals in order to make more sausages, including cats and dogs. Horrified, the four animals decide they must find a way to stop this. They return to the Mix Max headquarters, apologize for escaping and ask Platini if they can have their jobs back. He agrees because sausage sales have dropped while the animals were away. Also, Dr. Greed is now running for President, and he feels that the singing animals might help his campaign. It's arranged for The Fearless Four to perform songs favoring his campaign at a live concert. In order to prevent the animals from using that opportunity to sabotage him, Dr. Greed has his pet snake watching over The Fearless Four. But the mouse Mozart saves the day again, showing up with a snake-charming flute. He puts the snake to sleep, so when the concert starts, The Fearless Four are free to say whatever they like. They reveal to the audience that the Mix Max corporation has been lying about its activities, and a riot ensues. The Mix Max officials retreat to their factory, but the four animals follow them, attack them and defeat them. Lastly, they free the animals which had been destined to become sausages.
The film ends with the four animals returning to the countryside. Gwendolyn purchases her old home and turns it into a refuge for the animals freed from the sausage factory; she also finds Aunt Wanda's jewels, hidden in the woman's portrait. The animals then have a party to celebrate their freedom.
This story is loosely adapted from the folk tale of the Town Musicians of Bremen.
Cast
| Character |  |
 |
|---|---|---|
| Buster the dog | Bernd Schramm (speaking voice) Hartmut Engler (singing voice) | James Ingram |
| Gwendolyn the she-cat | Sandra Schwarzhaupt | Oleta Adams |
| Fred the donkey | Mario Adorf | B.B. King |
| Tortellini the rooster | Joachim Kemmer | Zucchero |
| Powertool | Frank Zander | Frank Zander |
Release
In North America, the English version was released on Warner Home Video on May 7, 1998. The DVD was released on September 28, 2003. The most recent release was a re-release of the same DVD, but bundled with Rover Dangerfield, which was released on July 4, 2007. Germany received a DVD release twice; A regular release, and one from Warner Kids (a label for Warner Bros. films that were family-friendly) using the original name, "Die Bremer Stadtmuzikanten". A Region 2 VHS was released in the United Kingdom on July 19, 1999. Greece, Russia, and Italy (as La Banda Del Rock - I Musicanti De Bremen) had a VHS release around or after 1998. France had a VHS release on September 15, 1999 (as Les musiciens de Bréme). Brazil got the film on February 20, 1998 and had a VHS release. It was called Os Quatros Aventureiros there in the country. The film premiered in the Netherlands in 2002 as De Bremer Stadsmuzikanten on VHS. Other countries like Spain (called Los Musicos de Bremen) also had a VHS release. The film is very rare in North America, really now only available from sources like Vudu, YouTube, and the Xbox video and music app. The film in the English version was available on Amazon Video in the fall of 2016. In 2018, South Korea released the movie on DVD with an English dub in it. It is unknown that whenever will they have a Region 1 DVD release in the United States.
In all releases of the movie outside of Germany, scenes were cut from the original version. Scene Include; The animals are celebrating and drinking wine after the Mix Max factory is destroyed, a song (which would be too sexual, as well as being disturbing for kids, involving Gwendolyn seducing Platini, which could be considered Beastality), extended footage of the tickle torture machine, and Fred being sent to it, a sexual innuendo joke (where a bee lands on a woman's breast on a magazine in one scene) and most of Dr. Greed's footage being cut to a few appearances and being at the finale due to the fact that most of his screentime in the original release involved him getting an assassin to kill a CEO of their company's competitor. This reduces the film's run time to about 78(PAL releases)-81 minutes in the other releases that were outside of Germany. Stuffed animals, a soundtrack, Bullyland figures, books and other items were produced for the movie's release in Germany.
The film went on television in North America on Encore (Encore Wam) years ago. It went on television in France on channels like AB3 and in the United Kingdom on Cartoon Network, and in Canada on YTV in 2010 and Treehouse TV in 2013 and has also appeared on other channels internationally. This film aired on KidScene: HDNet Movies in March 2018, along with Cats Don't Dance and Inside Out.
Production
The film was a 1997 holiday season release with Anastasia, Flubber, Alien: Resurrection, Home Alone 3, Titanic, MouseHunt, Mr. Magoo and the re-release of The Little Mermaid. The movie was started in March 1995, and ended production in December 1996. 150 people from around the world worked on the movie, as well as animators in the computer animation department that worked on the backgrounds, the robot centaur in the movie, Powertool, as well as vehicles. The colorization, as well as the animation camera was created digitally. The film costed 15 million in USD.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 "Die FURCHTLOSEN VIER (1997)". British Film Institute. Retrieved 2016-04-29.