How the Toys Saved Christmas

How the Toys Saved Christmas
Original theatrical poster
Directed by	Enzo D'Alò
Written by	Enzo D'Alò Umberto Marino
Based on	The Befana's Toyshop by Gianni Rodari
Produced by	Maria Fares
Music by	Paolo Conte
Production companies	Alpha-Film Lanterna Magica Monipoly Productions
Distributed by	Mikado Film
Release date	5 December 1996 (1996-12-05) (Germany)
Running time	83 minutes
Countries	Italy Switzerland Germany Luxembourg
Languages	Italian German Swiss Luxembourgish English

How the Toys Saved Christmas (Italian: La freccia azzurra) is a 1996 Italian animated film directed by Enzo D'Alò, based on the children's novel The Befana's Toyshop by Gianni Rodari.

In the original version, the story took place during the Epiphany Eve, because in the Folklore of Italy the Befana is a good witch that gives presents and candies to the children during the night between 5 and 6 January.

Plot

On the Epiphany Eve, La Befana falls ill and must take off for a night, recruiting Scarafoni to help deliver all the toys that must go to the Italian children. No one but the toys knows that Scarafoni plans to auction off the toys to the highest bidder, which means that the toys won't make it to the children who have been good all year and therefore deserve them. The toys decide to deliver themselves: the story follows them as they struggle to avoid the heartless Scarafoni and to find their true homes.

Meanwhile, a young boy named Francesco wishes to receive as an Epiphany present the model of the Freccia Azzurra (Blue Arrow), the train where his late father used to work on. While Scarafoni is out looking for the escaping toys, a couple of burglars, Lesto and Scarpa, kidnaps Francesco and force him to sneak inside the Befana's shop and taking away all the money. Francesco, instead, uses the telephone inside the shop to call the police who arrest the burglars; Befana understands that Francesco is not involved in the attempted robbery and, with much gratitude, exonerates Francesco.

Of all the toys, the plush dog Spicciola wishes to be given to Francesco. During the evening, after a fight against Scarafoni that splits him from the group, Spicciola turns into a real dog. The next morning, Spicciola finds Francesco and the two bonds immediately.

In the end, all the toys manage to deliver themselves to the children in their homes, but Scarafoni still has the money. However, everyone rushes to the toy shop and find Scarafoni with the money and the people manage to get it back from him as he is arrested. Befana, after having found that her illness was provoked by Scarafoni himself, who gave her a light poison instead of medicine, hires Francesco as her new helper, joined by Spicciola.

U.S. version

In 1997, the film was imported to the U.S. and released direct-to-video by Buena Vista Home Video, under the title How the Toys Saved Christmas (although, as shown in the previews, it was originally going to be titled The Toys Who Saved Christmas).

Plot

Granny Rose Mary Tyler Moore helps Santa Clause each year deliver Toys to Girls and Boys around the world but one Christmas Eve she gets a cold and asks her worker Mr. Grimm Tony Randall to help Santa deliver the toys to which Grimm agrees although he secretly plans to sell the toys to children who's parents are rich. Meanwhile young orphan Christopher Winter Michael Caloz writes a letter to Santa asking for the Blue Arrow Train toy as a gift for his friend Charlie who lives with his Uncle Hank and works on the rails and then Christopher asks for his gift to be a special friend however when he goes to deliver his letter to Santa he meets Grimm who tells him that only kids who have money will get toys and not poor kids like him hurting Christopher that he leaves.

Soon the toys in Granny Rose's shop Jingles the Dog, Indian Chief, The 3 Conductors of the Blue Arrow Train, Holly and Polly the dolls, Theodore the Teddy Bear, The Skipper in his boat, The Colored Pencils, The General and his soldiers, The Construction Workers, The Pilot, and The Wizard all come to life and declare that Mr. Grimm will deliver them to the wrong children so they decide to deliver themselves to the right children using Jingles Sence. The Wizard at 1st doesn't wanna leave the shop feeling the plan to be ridiculous but soon joins them and the group escape quickly as Mr. Grimm nearly catches them vowing to find them and sell them.

The toys drop Theodore the Teddy Bear off first to a boy who's asking for a new toy to sleep with after giving his previous toy to his new baby brother. Along the way the toys get into mischief such as The Blue Arrow Train getting stuck in Mud and Holly the doll falling into the mud and being rescued by the Skipper and the General gets buried in the snow causing the others to leave without him but he is found by Mr. Potter Bruce Dinsmore a kind watchman who gives him to his son Little Johnny as a present.

Meanwhile Christopher gets a job at the theater to make money so he can get a Christmas gift from Santa. He is secretly followed and captured by two robbers Named Smithy and Rocko who force him to help them rob Granny Roses shop and steal her money. After Granny Rose leaves her shop learning of Mr. Grimms betrayal Smithy and Rocko push Christopher through the window into the shop ordering him to open the door. However Christopher does the right thing and uses the phone to call the police who show up quickly with Mr. Potter but when they catch Christopher inside the shop they misread the situation and think that he's robbing the store also and arrest him and Rocko and Smithy.

Meanwhile Jingles loses his sent but soon recovers it and the Toys Celebrate only to be found by Mr. Grimm. Jingles manages to fight off Mr. Grimm giving the toys time to escape but Mr. Grimm throws him into the trash and manages to catch up to the toys but they manage to knock him out cold defeating him. When the toys can't find Jingles they believe that he got killed by Mr. Grimm and mourn the death of their friend and push on their journey where Holly and Polly are given to two sisters named Jenny and Lucy, The Colored Pencils are given to a boy and draw pictures for him much to his delight, and Skipper is accidentally given to a girl named Samantha who he thought was a boy named Sam but luckily manages to escape and is found by Granny Rose who gives him to a real boy who lives near the sea. Finally The Blue Arrow Train Conductors manage to make it to Charlie's house and proudly watch as Charlie stops a train from crashing onto the tracks and are honored to be his Christmas gift.

Meanwhile Granny Rose goes to the police station having heard from Mr. Potter about her store getting robbed and clears Christopher's name and he is set free while Smithy and Rocko are arrested and put in jail. And across town Jingles is freed from the trash can by a friendly dog named Rascal and soon finds Christopher's sent knowing he's the boy meant for him and rushes off to find him

Soon Christopher finds Jingles and picks him up realizing he's the friend he asked for and they witness Mr. Grimm get arrested by the police for stealing the money from Granny's shop and betraying her.

Christopher and Jingles go to meet Granny Rose at her shop and share how it was a great Christmas after all and Granny Rose asks Christopher to help her deliver the toys next year to which he agrees.

The plot is otherwise very similar to the original Italian version, with some minor alterations. Rather than desiring the Blue Arrow for himself, Christopher Winter writes to Santa on behalf of his friend Charlie, a fellow orphan and the one who ultimately receives the train as his gift. For himself, Christopher asks for "one special friend", making his adoption of Jingles a fulfillment of his actual wish in this version.

The film also had some scenes from the original Italian release deleted or placed before other scenes, along with some music scores taken out and new music added in.

Cast

Character	Italian name	Original Italian V.O.	English dub (Miramax version)
Mr. Grimm	Scarafoni	Dario Fo	Tony Randall
Granny Rose	La Befana	Lella Costa	Mary Tyler Moore
Christopher Winter	Francesco	Alida Milana	Michael Caloz
Jingles the Dog	Spicciola	Monica Bertolotti	Sonja Ball
The Indian Chief	Penna d'Argento	Rino Bolognesi	Terrence Scammell
Skipper the Boat Captain	Capitano Mezzabarba	Vittorio Amandola	Richard Dumont
Holly and Polly the Dollies	Carlotta and Barbara	Ilaria Latini	Holly Gauthier-Frankel (Holly) Maggie Castle (Polly)
General Lajoie	Generale	Rodolfo Bianchi	Rick Jones
The Stubborn Wizard	Mago Testardo	Carlo Reali	Garry Jewell
Theodore the Wind-Up Teddy Bear	Orso Giallo	Roberto Stocchi	Michael Rudder
The Plane Pilot	Pilota D'Aereo	Marco Bresciani	Thor Bishopric
The Toy Crane Foreman	Caposquadra della Gru	Unknown Voice Actor	Mark Camacho
The Blue Arrow Train Crew	Il personale del treno della Freccia Azzurra	Oliviero Dinelli (Conductor) Christian Iansante (Train Driver) Unknown Voice Actor (Trainman)	Richard Dumont (Conductor) Arthur Holden (Train Driver) Michael Rudder (Trainman)
The Colored Pencils	Pastelli	Sergio Luzi (red and black) Pino Ammendola (green and blue) Neri Marcorè (yellow) Gaetano Varcasia (white and brown)	Bruce Dinsmore (red pencil) Rick Jones (yellow pencil) Terrence Scammell (green pencil) Arthur Holden (blue pencil) Richard Dumont (black pencil) Garry Jewell (brown pencil) Mark Camacho (white pencil)
The Wooden Duck	Anatra di Legno	Unknown Voice Actor	Rick Jones
Swifty and Rocko the Burglars	Lesto and Scarpa	Fabio Boccanera (Lesto) Roberto Pedicini (Scarpa)	Richard Dumont (Swifty) Mark Camacho (Rocko)
Mr. Tinker the Toy Maker	Mastro Romualdo	Nello Riviè	Walter Massey
Mr. Potter the Night Watchman	Arturo	Giorgio Borghetti	Bruce Dinsmore
Milford and Alfred the Twins	Carlo Alberto and Filippo Maria	Davide Perino (Carlo Alberto) Alessio de Filippis (Filippo Maria)	Jane Woods (Milford) Susan Glover (Alfred)
Jonesy the Twins' Maid	Domestica	Unknown Voice Actor	Joanna Noyes
The Chief of Police	Capo della Polizia	Pino Ferrara	Walter Massey
The Police Constable	Agente	Unknown Voice Actor	Terrence Scammell
The Ticket Seller	Venditore di Biglietti	Laura Cosenza	Joanna Noyes
The Coach Driver	Autista di Pullman	Unknown Voice Actor	Michael Rudder
Charlie	Unknown Name	Unknown Voice Actor	Michael Carloz
Uncle Hank	Unknown Name	Unknown Voice Actor	Mark Camacho
Samantha	Unknown Name	Unknown Voice Actor	Maggie Castle
The Town Stature	Statura	Michele Kalamera	Garry Jewell
Rascal the Stray Dog	Nerone	Unknown Voice Actor	Mark Camacho
Christopher's Dad	Papà	Unknown Voice Actor	Neil Shee
Santa Claus	Babbo Natale	Renzo Stacchi	Neil Shee

Home media

Buena Vista Home Video released the film in its English-dubbed version on DVD in 2003. Echo Bridge Home Entertainment re-released the film on DVD in 2011. It was also re-released on DVD by Lionsgate in 2014 and Paramount Home Entertainment in 2020.

See also

• List of Christmas films
• Toy Story – a 1995 animated film
• The Christmas Toy – a 1986 Jim Henson's TV special
• The Brave Little Toaster – a 1987 animated film
• The Little Engine That Could – a 1991 animated short film

External links

• How the Toys Saved Christmas at IMDb