Olsen Gang


The Olsen Gang is a Danish comedy film series about the eponymous fictional criminal gang. The gang's leader is the criminal genius and habitual offender Egon Olsen and his accomplices are Benny and Kjeld. The gang members are harmless, extremely rarely target ordinary citizens, and never use violence. The first film came in 1968; during the next thirty years a total of fourteen films were made.
A Norwegian version of the film series was also made, in most cases based directly on the scripts for the Danish films. Later, starting in 1981, Sweden also produced their own version: Jönssonligan.

Plot

Most of the films start with Egon coming out of jail and being enthusiastically welcomed by Benny and Kjeld. The three men will then have a beer together in the living room of Kjeld's dilapidated home in a run-down Valby neighbourhood, where Egon will inform his friends of his latest plan, usually for making them millionaires. Plans are often two-step plans, where the first will get the equipment for the real, second plan. The plans usually feature everyday artefacts such as Lego, party balloons, cigarettes etc., which are then brought together in surprising ways in elaborate and well-timed plans, often including clever social engineering. Bennys main function in the heists, besides get-away-driver, is often as keeper of "The Thing", a specially shaped metal piece used for manipulating most any machinery or opening doors.
Egon often serves time with lawyers or executives who provide him with the information he needs, such as duty rosters for the national public record office. Egon is also a brilliant safecracker, operating manually, specializing in the fictive "Franz Jäger" brand.
Egon's plans often bring the gang into perilously close contact with white-collar criminals from the Danish business elite. For example, in one episode some well-connected people try to make money out of the so-called "butter mountain", a huge amount of butter bought up and stored by the EEC to keep prices up. Egon Olsen learns about this from a lawyer who is serving prison time, and the gang interferes with the plan to secure the millions for themselves. But as always, Egon – after having succeeded with a genius plan – for a variety of reasons, for instance underestimating the power and unscrupulousness of these people, bad luck, Yvonne's interference or other surprising elements. For several movies the role of antagonist was filled by CEO Hallandsen of the fictive, multinational company Hallandsen Inc. - or variations thereof.
Egon is usually arrested in the end, for various reasons: scapegoat, bad luck, some completely irrelevant crime, or even turning himself in as a matter of honour.
A recurring part of the films is making fun of Danish authorities, especially the police. Superintendent Jensen to his younger colleague, inspector Holm: "The only thing the police can do when the real big criminals come by is offer them protection!" Jensen incredously uses the recurring exclamation "Bagmændene!" to reference the in-joke of powerful players moving outside of the law.
In the early episodes, profanity and soft-erotica were more freely used than in later ones, where said content was somewhat watered down to suit younger viewers.
Later movies focused on the satirical interplay between Jensen and Holm and Egon and Kjeld, with a frequent outburst of anger from Olsen. Especially Olsen's long list of slurs are famous, like "social democrats!", "insane woman!", "lousy amateurs!", "cowards!", "dog heads!", "porridge peasants!", "sop!", "scumbag!", to name a few.

Characters

Recurring characters in the Danish version:
The Olsen Gang have been made in Norwegian and Swedish versions too. While both remakes follow a generally similar formula to the Danish films, especially the Swedish version diverge from the Danish original in storylines and character development.

Norwegian Olsenbanden

The Norwegian remakes were, with two exceptions, directed by Knut Bohwim based on Balling and Bahs's original scripts with minor adaptations to Norwegian conditions. For example, some names of the main characters were changed: Kjeld became Kjell, Yvonne became Valborg, and Børge became Basse. The character of Benny's brother, Dynamite Harry, was used much more often in the Norwegian films than in the original Danish series, with six appearances.

Swedish Jönssonligan

In the Swedish version, the Egon character is called Charles-Ingvar "Sickan" Jönsson, with a slightly different costume and mannerisms, and was a huge success for the actor Gösta Ekman until the actor got tired of the character and left the series. Benny's character was named Vanheden, a small-timer from Stockholm, played by Ulf Brunnberg. Kjeld's character was named Rocky, but appeared only in the first two films. From the second film, the character Dynamit-Harry played by Björn Gustafson was featured instead. Although starting out as a strict remake, after a while the franchise started writing their own scripts.
The Swedish franchise eventually expanded into movies of the band as young kids: Lilla Jönssonligan with four features to date.
There was also an attempt to reboot the franchise, featuring brand new actors in the adult roles. Jönssonligan – Den perfekta stöten was released to middling reviews and poor box office.

Danish films

The first thirteen films were directed by Erik Balling, while Tom Hedegaard and Morten Arnfred directed the fourteenth and final Olsen Gang film. The scripts were written by Balling and Henning Bahs, who also worked as a production designer.

Danish cast

A Danish TV series and a feature film have been made showing the main characters as children, following the Swedish success of Lilla Jönssonligan:
Two computer animated films have been released in the 2010s:
Several elements recur in the films series. As the Japanese carmaker Toyota was usually the main sponsor of the film series, most cars, including the villain's cars, the security cars, the police cars, the gang's car, civilian cars parked on the sidewalks, etc. was supplied by the company. Models include the Crown as taxis, Toyota Cressida as police cars, Hiace as security vans and money transports, and so on. There have been exceptions, notably Olsenbandens aller siste kupp from 1982, which was sponsored by Datsun.

Norwegian DVDs

Most of the Norwegian films have been digitally restored. The discs include English & Norwegian Subtitles, 16:9 format and Dolby Digital 1.0 surround sound.
DVD Release List:
The Danish TV series showing the gang during their childhood, Olsen-bandens første kup, was remade in Norway as Olsenbandens første kupp. There has also been made an entire feature film series, Olsenbanden Jr., with six films from 2003 to 2010, inspired by the Swedish Lilla Jönssonligan.

In popular culture

The popularity of the film series inspired a Norwegian restaurant chain, Egon, with the logo alluding to Egon Olsen's iconic hat and cigar.
Semic published five comic albums featuring the Olsen Gang, starting with "Olsenbanden raner hurtigruta!" published in 1983.
In June 2019, the Norwegian Postal service issued two stamps to celebrate the first films 50th anniversary. The domestic stamp depicts Egon leaving prison, which is the opening scene in most of the films. The European stamp shows the whole gang, including Harry and Valborg.