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Sometimes a true story is stranger than fiction. This week at Velvet Hammer Films this adage was reinforced when we were informed our microbudget horror film was responsible for tarnishing a national icon of Sweden.
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Pelle on Pelle? From the Expressen article on July 1st, 2008
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It started when an anonymous busybody posted claims on IMDB (see the thread here) regarding an impending lawsuit for copyright infringement because “Naked’s” main character, Pelle Svanslos, was also the title character in a series of Swedish kiddie books from the late 30’s.
When Sean explained to this person (according to the U.S. government) you couldn’t copyright a name he thought this was hilarious while insinuating the people who owned the rights to those books had been ‘informed’ and lawyers were ‘looking into it’.
We all know anonymous people on the internet love to talk shit and this just seemed another example of that. However, this busybody took it a step further and informed a daily Swedish newspaper, Expressen, about the brouhaha. Lord knows what he actually said because the article makes it seem like the cartoon cat of these children’s novels had skipped out to Hollywood to slum in some sleazy horror movie.
When we found the article on the newspaper’s website (using Google translator) we saw that the writer actually called a couple of people up (including the woman who runs a Pelle Svanslos museum…who would have thought there was a museum??). They seemed confused about the whole affair. “Is it a kid’s film? Does it have cats?” was their query.
No, ma’am. “Naked Beneath the Water” is not for children nor does it have any cats.
We’re thinking that it was either a slow day for the Swedish news or we accidentally tapped into some serious national pride. Either way, we’d like to inform all the Vikings that are gearing up to tar and feather us, that the use of Pelle Svanslos in “Naked” is just a coincidence.
And even though we were tempted (after the suggestion of one Swedish fan who e-mailed us) to put a psycho killing Pippi Longstocking in our next film we plan to make sure we never again put ourselves in the position of having a whole country hating us.
If you want to check out the article for yourself there is a link here . It’s in Swedish though. So, you’ll have to get it translated. The best part is in the comments section. The busybody complains: “I am disappointed that you haven’t even thanked me for giving you this tip!”
Warhol was right. Everyone wants their 15 minutes.
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Filed under: Naked Beneath the Water
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