A BOY NAMED CHARLEY BROWN

US, 1969, 78 minutes, Colour.
The Peanuts Gang.
Directed by Bill Melendez.

A Boy Named Charley Brown is the first full length cartoon of Charles Schultz's famous characters. (There have been a number of T.V. programmes). It contains many of the most familiar features, Charley Brown's baseball games, Snoopy as the Red Baron, Schroeder and his music, Linus and his Blanket, Lucy and her psychiatry and endears itself to the strips fans by its pleasant visualisation of them all. The drawings are good and there is a slight story, mainly about a spelling competition involving Charley Brown. The message of the strips comes across with its humane, spiritual and slightly wry and pessimistic perception of mankind. There are some Rod Mc Kuen songs which don't detract from the overall effect of the film. Entertaining and instructive.

1. How well did this film capture the spirit of the comic strip?

2. Was the impact of the cartoon spirit enhanced by the moving pictures and the full-length story?

3. What were the best features of the film? Why?

4. Was there anything superfluous in the film? What about the songs?

5. Take each of the principal characters. What features of being human do they illustrate?
- Charley Brown: his sense of failure, the baseball games, the spelling competition, and the words he knew how to spell correctly.
- Lucy: was she as hard in the film as in the strips? What about her psychiatry and slides?
- Snoopy: did you enjoy the Red Baron fantasy? What was its point?
- Schroeder: his music and love for Beethoven.
- Linus: his blanket, did its meaning come across? His dizziness?
- the other children: the mob rule of the children, the climax of the spelling bee and the winning of the baseball match without Charley Brown.

6. A happy film? A cartoon for children or adults?