Meister Eder und sein Pumuckl (1982)

A wooden mallet (a wooden hammer used for carving) Berlin’s Rio Cinema, 1991: notices in the display cases on the left and right More and more eerie things happen in master carpenter Eder’s workshop: tools disappear and objects fall down. Finally, when an overflowing pot of glue moves as if by itself, Master Eder throws a wooden mallet at it. The goblin Pumuckl, who had pushed the pot, gets stuck to it and becomes visible—but only to Master Eder. Pumuckl explains that, under goblin law, he now has to stay with him. Eder can’t keep the news to himself and tells his regulars at the pub, but they don’t believe him and say he is confusing dreams with reality. However, the goblin is still there when Eder returns, and he makes his presence known to visitors too. This reassures the carpenter, who now knows he wasn’t dreaming with his eyes open. Soon afterward, Master Bernbacher, a locksmith and close friend of Eder’s, comes to the workshop to see whether his friend has come to his senses. Unwittingly, he gets Pumuckl angry when he calls him a “stupid goblin.” Pumuckl follows Bernbacher to his apartment and plays tricks on him. The next day, Master Eder makes Pumuckl a bed so he no longer has to sleep in the wood shavings—in other words, the waste. Pumuckl is delighted. A customer soon takes an interest in the bed, which she thinks is for a doll, and wants to buy it. The angry goblin makes a racket and gets so covered in soot that he has to be bathed, which he really doesn’t like. To encourage him to agree to future baths too, Eder builds him a swing boat. Soon afterward, a countess’s butler arrives with a damaged chest of drawers from the furnishings of a castle. Eder tells Pumuckl about the castle, and, now curious, Pumuckl secretly gets taken there along with the piece of furniture and haunts the place. Things get worse when the butler calls goblins “rabble,” insulting Pumuckl. At last, the carpenter is summoned to help and is able to fetch his goblin back. In the following scene, Bernbacher visits Eder and invites him to his birthday party at the inn. Pumuckl insists on coming along, but despite his vehement protests, he is not allowed to. Once Eder has left, Pumuckl goes into the kitchen, turns on the radio, and sings and dances along to it. The noise alerts the janitor couple, who get Eder’s cleaning lady, Eichinger, to unlock the door for them. Pumuckl seizes this opportunity to run to the inn. He turns the gathering upside down until Eder, who soon realizes what is going on, sends him home. Back in the workshop, Pumuckl writes a little more poetry and then falls asleep in his swing boat. Master Eder, no longer angry with Pumuckl, later carries him to bed.