De club van de Zwarte Pijl

Summary

Compilation of five short children's films directed by Dick Laan.

De club van de Zwarte Pijl (The Black Arrow Club) is a 1932 compilation of five 'boy scout films' made between 1917 and 1920 by writer and filmmaker Dick Laan. They all revolve around the same didactic message: a child who joins the boy scouts will not grow up to be a troublemaker. Laan's films are always beautifully photographed and skilfully cut. The stories are told in a surprisingly straightforward manner, often by means of flashbacks.

In De droom van een Bloemendaalsch padvindertje (The dream of a boy scout from Bloemendaal) he uses a similar device: a nightmare. Laan's inventive camerawork shows a chase sequence reminiscent of the early European slapstick tradition of the 1930s. The chase up the sand dune, like the pole climbing sequence, was cut back to front (as if depicting a fall from the top of the dune ). This kind of playfulness is a good antidote to the stuffy morality of Laan's films. The other four films are: De belooning van Hi, Hoe het kwam, Jan Feith en zijn nieuwste jongensboek, and Pim, de schrik van de familie.