The Three Robbers

The Three Robbers is a children's book by Tomi Ungerer. There was a 6-minute animated adaptation released in 1972 by Gene Deitch.

Plot
Triplet brothers are very successful in their exploits as highwayman robbers: Dominik using his blunderbuss to intimidate coachmen and passengers, Felix using his pepper-blower to disorientate and blind the horses, while Maximus vandalizes and damages the carriage wheels with his red battle axe. But, one day the robbers intercept a carriage, only to find a lonely girl named Tiffany whose parents died and is being sent to live with a wicked aunt who runs an orphanage. Not wanting to go to the orphanage, Tiffany tricks the robbers into believing she was the daughter of a maharaja, and is carried off to their hideout. While Tiffany makes the robbers question what they intend to do with their amassed wealth, she helps them learn to read and write when they want to send a ransom letter. The robbers eventually learn Tiffany lied to them when they found her missing child poster. Tiffany is remorseful and leaves in shame to head to the orphanage.

Tiffany encounters two runaway orphans along the way to the orphanage. From them she learns that Auntie places the children in mandatory child labor to harvest sugar beets and extract the sugar for her pastry-making machine to make her desserts. After secretly entering the orphanage while the runways are captured, Tiffany exposes Auntie's pastry hoard to the other orphans. Auntie was about to punish Tiffany when the robbers arrive, revealed to be runaway orphans themselves as they make amends with Tiffany. Auntie refuses to hand Tiffany over to the robbers before falling into her pastry-making vat in a fit of insanity and is turned into a cake which the orphans eat. The robbers then use their wealth to buy the orphanage, which becomes a haven for all uncared children; eventually growing into a large town with its residents revering the robbers.

Characters

 * Tiffany
 * Robber (has a blunderbuss to threaten the passengers).
 * Robber (has a pepper-blower to blind the horses).
 * Robber (has a huge red axe to chop the carriage wheels).

Additional characters (from the film)

 * The Evil Aunty
 * The Poilceman
 * The Coachman Frog
 * Nikolas
 * Gregory
 * The Children of the Orphanage
 * The Slow Unicorn
 * Mr. Narrator

Film
The book was adapted as a full-length feature film by Hayo Freitag, released in mid-2007 as Die Drei Rauber. This was adapted into a French version called Les Trois Brigands then an English one called Trick or Treaters, which removed the original narration by Tomi Ungerer along with cutting out some of the original movie to shorten it and added a Halloween theme with the new narrator.

Accolades
The film received the second prize for Animated Feature Film or Video in the Adult Jury Prizes at the Chicago International Children's Film Festival in 2007, and in 2008 and 2009 was awarded first prizes and audience awards at film festivals in Hamburg (Germany), Paris, Bordeaux, Annecy (France), Poznan (Poland), Bilbao (Spain), Brussels, Ghent (Belgium), Bucharest (Romania), and Toronto. It received the audience Award at the Annecy International Animated Film Festival, 2008. Trick or Treaters DVD was released on September 6, 2016 in United States.