The Blue Bird (1940 film)
| The Blue Bird | |
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.jpg) Theatrical release poster |
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| Directed by | Walter Lang |
| Produced by | Darryl F. Zanuck |
| Written by | Screenplay: Ernest Pascal Walter Bullock Play: Maurice Maeterlinck |
| Starring | Shirley Temple Spring Byington Nigel Bruce |
| Music by | Alfred Newman |
| Cinematography | Arthur C. Miller |
| Editing by | Robert Bischoff |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) | January 19, 1940 |
| Running time | 88 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Blue Bird is a 1940 American fantasy film directed by Walter Lang. The screenplay by Walter Bullock was adapted from the 1908 play of the same name by Maurice Maeterlinck. Intended as 20th Century Fox's answer to MGM's The Wizard of Oz, which had been released the previous year, it was filmed in Technicolor and tells the story of a disagreeable little girl (played by Shirley Temple) and her search for happiness.
Despite being a box office flop and losing money, the film was later nominated for two Academy Awards. It is available on both VHS and DVD.
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[edit] Plot
Set in Germany sometime in the late 18th century where Mytyl (Shirley Temple), the bratty daughter of a woodcutter (Russell Hicks), finds a unique bird in the Royal Forest and selfishly refuses to give it to her sick friend. Mytyl and Tyltyl's parents are separated when the woodcutter must go off to fight in an unspecified war, but mother and father are mortified at her behavior. That night, she is visited in a dream by a fairy named Berylune (Jessie Ralph ) who sends her and her brother Tyltyl (Johnny Russell) to search for the Blue Bird of Happiness. To accompany them, the fairy magically transforms their dog Tylo (Eddie Collins), cat Tylette (Gale Sondergaard), and lantern ("Light") into human form. The children have a number of adventures. The dream journey makes Mytyl awake as a kinder and gentler girl who has learned to appreciate all the comforts and joys of her home and family, and the children's father returns home safely from the war.
The film, although following the basic plot of the stage version, highly embellishes it, and does not literally use the original dialogue. The opening black-and-white scenes and the war subplot were invented for the film. Mytyl's selfishness, the basic trait of her personality, was a plot thread specifically written into the motion picture. It is not in the original play.
The play begins with the children already asleep and the dream about to begin. There is absolutely no depiction of the family's daily life, as there is in the 1940 film.
[edit] Cast
- Shirley Temple as Mytyl
- Spring Byington as Mummy Tyl
- Nigel Bruce as Mr. Luxury
- Gale Sondergaard as Tylette (the cat)
- Eddie Collins as Tylo (the dog)
- Sybil Jason as Angela Berlingot
- Helen Ericson as Light
- Johnny Russell as Tytyl
- Laura Hope Crews as Mrs.Luxury
- Russell Hicks as Daddy Tyl
- Cecilia Loftus as Granny Tyl
- Al Shean as Grandpa Tyl
- Gene Reynolds as Studious Boy
- Stanley Andrews as Wilhelm
Four-year old Caryll Ann Ekelund (credited as Caryll N. Ekelund), appears as an unborn child in the film. She was the girl who tried to sneak on the boat.[1] On Halloween 1939, Ekelund's costume caught fire from a lit jack-o-lantern. She died from her burns several days later and was buried in her costume from the film. Ekelund came from a show business family, and her older sister was actress Jana Lund.
[edit] Production
Twentieth Century-Fox reportedly made the film intending to give Temple her own fantasy vehicle after she lost the role of Dorothy to Judy Garland. Shirley had been considered for the role of Dorothy Gale in MGM's The Wizard of Oz a year earlier, but her modest singing talent and contractual obligations to Fox Studios prevented her from getting the part.
The Blue Bird was Shirley Temple's first box-office flop in her 6 years as a child star. Audiences disliked the idea of Shirley as a nasty character needing to learn a lesson. While many of Temple's films show her character misbehaving in various ways, this is the only one to show her being truly punished. Early in the film, her brattiness earns her a reprimand from her mother.
Almost a month prior to the film's release, The Blue Bird was dramatized as a half-hour radio play on the December 24, 1939, broadcast of The Screen Guild Theater, starring Shirley Temple and Nelson Eddy.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Windeler, Robert (1992) [1978], The Films of Shirley Temple, Carol Publishing Group, pp. 208–211
[edit] External links
- The Blue Bird at the Internet Movie Database
- The Blue Bird at AllRovi
- The Blue Bird at the TCM Movie Database
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