This Truly Bizarre Stop-Motion Racing Movie Is The Most Successful Norwegian Film Of All Time

Norwegian stop motion filmmaker Ivo Caprino took nearly five years to bring his tiny race car vision to life on the silver screen in 1975. "The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix" began as a series of shorts intended for a 25-minute television program on regional television based on the books of Kjell Aukrust, but after 18 months of work the project was scrapped for being largely incomprehensible and way over budget, so Caprino had to finish it on his own. As luck would have it, the film was an instant smash success, selling over a million tickets within the first year of its release in Norway. Once the film found wider audience in Europe it quickly became the most successful Norwegian film of all time, and set a record for stop motion film ticket sales until 1993's "The Nightmare Before Christmas".

The film follows an inventive young bicycle repairman named Theodore Rimspoke and his pals Lambert and Sonny, a hedgehog and a magpie respectively on their journey to develop a World Championship Grand Prix car. A former assistant of Rimspoke, Rudolph Gore-Slimey, stole his engine design and used it to become the F1 champion. With funding from a vacationing OPEC nation sheik, Rimspoke, Lambert, and Sonny make it their mission to beat Gore-Slimey with a new, better racing car design called Il Tempo Gigante.

As you would expect, Gore-Slimey will stop at nothing to maintain his F1 title, including sabotage and a variety of cheats. I won't tell you how it ends, but you can guess from here if you've seen enough Speed Racer cartoons. In fact, I would wager that Japan's Mach GoGoGo of the 1960s was at least a little bit of inspiration for Caprino's efforts on Pinchcliffe. It's fun and entertaining and ridiculous and stupid, and more movies should be like this. The world needs more whimsy.

Above I've linked the racing scene in Danish on YouTube, though this is just under a quarter of the 88-minute feature-length film. You can buy an English language copy of Pinchcliffe Grand Prix on DVD, it's not currently streaming anywhere, but I'm not sure it'll be demonstrably easier to understand in English. In fact, I think the Danish just ramps up the weird a little. Kick it on and enjoy. And if this gets your motor going, go order the DVD.