This animated film was always a great favourite with me. Sadly it was not critically or commercially successful, compared unfavourably to Disney, which was going through its renaissance. I’m not going to argue that it rivals a Disney film, but I still think it’s charming and entertaining. I had no idea that the story was based on a Victorian-era fairytale by George MacDonald, published in 1872. I recently read his book of the same title on Project Gutenberg, expecting it to bear little resemblance. However, I was surprised by how similar they are. They have much more in common than, for example, Disney’s The Little Mermaid has with Andersen’s original tale. I’m not sure I’d recommend MacDonald’s book, as it has a very wordy style and sentimental tone not fashionable in children’s books today. There is a lot of focus on the saintly qualities of mother figures. Oddly, the author suggests at the end that the child reader wants to hear less about the goblins, and more of Irene and Curdie’s friendship. I think that would be rather the opposite!

The story is set in a kingdom where the humans and goblins co-exist uncomfortably. Princess Irene, a young girl who encounters the goblins, is saved by Curdie, a miner’s boy. He discovers the goblins are plotting against the humans. Meanwhile, the spirit of Irene’s great-great-grandmother helps Irene to rescue him.

The main points of the plot are included in the film, with some changes, particularly towards the end, where the goblins’ plans to flood the mine, take over the castle and kidnap Irene are converged into one campaign. The main difference is the portrayal of the goblins. In the book, they are the traditional kind, short and ugly but also vaguely human-looking. The theory in the book is that they are primordial beings, an evolutionary throwback. They speak in quite a sophisticated manner and are not particularly violent. The film turns them into cartoonish gargoyles with a variety of skin colours, a crude way of speaking and an aggressive nature. The culmination of this is the character of Prince Froglip (Harelip in the book), a green-skinned, lisping, scantily-clad goblin voiced enthusiastically by Rik Mayall, who plots viciously against the sun-people.

The film gives a feline companion to Irene, named Turnip. Perhaps this was inspired by the goblin-cat from the book, so that it has a normal cat for a rival. There’s a fun comedy moment when the two are fighting, and Princess Irene accidentally cuddles the goblin-cat, which looks terrified. The end credits of the film have a lovely line animation of Turnip playing about.

Irene’s father, or ‘papa-king’ as in the book, is away for much of the story. He is given a voiceover at the start and end of the film, just as in the book, the author’s voice – which sounds like a genial storytelling uncle – talks directly to the reader.

One more thing I’m going to mention is the use of music. In both the book and film, singing at the goblins is one way to fight them (the other is to stamp on their feet – although in the book, Curdie actually kills one with a blade). Curdie is particularly renowned for making up rhyming songs on the spot and some songs are more effective than others. In the film, instead of making things up, he sings the one song over and over, ‘There’s a Spark Inside Us’. It’s a good song and has a suitably Christian tone which I’m sure that George MacDonald, a minister, would have approved of.

The film has rather an international background; the production companies were Hungarian, Japanese and Welsh. Strangely I always thought it was set in Wales, perhaps because of the mining theme. It was first released in Hungary in 1991 as A hercegnő és a kobold, then the English version in 1992 in the UK, and finally the US in 1994.

Image by IMDb, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=55826137