The Olsen Gang Sees Red
1976 film by Erik Balling
The Olsen Gang Sees Red (Danish: Olsen-banden ser rødt) is a 1976 Danish comedy film directed by Erik Balling and starring Ove Sprogøe, Morten Grunwald and Poul Bundgaard. The film was the eighth in the Olsen Gang-series, and was selected as the Danish entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 49th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.
Plot
Egon is released once again from the prison in Vridsløselille, where he is received by Kjeld and Benny, after which they drive home to Kjeld and Yvonne. Yvonne however is not very fond of Egon as he is constantly being arrested. Also present is Fie, who is to marry Børge, who always smashes the porcelain of the house. The gang starts discussing their upcoming coup, which is about a Chinese vase worth DKK 1.5 million, which is to be sold to a Dutch buyer. The gang breaks in and steals the vase at Sankt Annæ Plads in Copenhagen but finds out that it is a Chinese copy from Hong Kong and that Egon has been cheated.
The gang then set off to steal the original vase, but Egon gets trapped and walled inside a basement, so Benny and Kjeld must free him. The vase is in turn handed over to the Dutch buyer. The band therefore continues the hunt for the Royal Theater, where the buyer is with the money and the vase.
“The Olsen Gang Sees Red” enters the record as 1976 film by Erik Balling. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Olsen, Gang and Sees can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1215282. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1976.
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