L'oiseau bleu

I haven't seen "The Bluebird" since I was about 10 years old or so (back in the late 1960's or early 1970's). It it still sticks with me and I think of it often. It was certainly a memorable film for a little girl. To me, it was a sweet picture of heaven and of home. It also reminded me very much of the close bond I had with my little brother. Every time I see a bluebird, I remember the movie. It made (and still makes) spotting a bluebird a wonderful experience. I hope it will come out on DVD soon so more people can see it and appreciate it. It's similar to the Wizard of Oz. It is a fantasy and a sentimental family film.

An extraordinary fantasy from 1940, THE BLUE BIRD is a much discussed drama with acute stings for a child audience. Kids today in 2005 would certainly immediately respond to the more severe points of this very strong lesson in life - and aware adults who watch it with them will have much to discuss - especially after the 'heaven' sequence with the unborn children. This 1940 BLUE BIRD is much maligned as is the 1975 version...and isn't that just so tiring?! What is it with 2005 comments that just criticize a film so well intentioned and produced like this? Apart from the Pixar 3D cartoons, family movies made today are not better than this 1940 and 1975 production, in fact this film of 1940 is easily as well produced and as emotionally powerful as THE WIZARD OF OZ which is the template (as opposed to Shirley) for this version. We all know the debate about OZ and this film (read other comments) but his is a much maligned and unappreciated major film, lavishly produced at a time when the world was heading into war and a moment for the reflection of what was going to happen to the children's hearts and heads. Don't believe me? Well have a good look and listen to the 'unborn' sequence. One of the great quiet emotional thumpings an adult can get while gasping for breath in a truly superb 'old movie' sequence. Fox need to allow this film to fly again and a DVD release is much deserved. Moaners just should shut up and stop trying to off-put educated families from seeing the genuine wonders and heart in this excellent film. And Johnny Russell! what a kid star! where do they find a 70 year old character and looks in a 6 year old's body and face? such is the genuine truth in THE BLUE BIRD and all its incredible realism.

THE BLUE BIRD (20th Century-Fox, 1940), directed by Walter Lang, adapted from the story by Maurice Masterlinck, is an interesting failure in Shirley Temple's movie career. A worthy follow-up to her previous success of THE LITTLE PRINCESS (1939), a family oriented story also produced with lavish scale settings and glossy Technicolor, THE BLUE BIRD, a dream-like fantasy often labeled as the studio's answer to THE WIZARD OF OZ (MGM, 1939) starring Judy Garland, could have or should have become a box office success, but it didn't. Using the same opening credit method from Temple's HEIDI (1937) introducing the cast and staff through a series of flipped pages from an open book, THE BLUE BIRD, coming nearly three years later, did allow the now taller Temple to break away from her sweet wholesome image to a selfish, disagreeable adolescent. Unlike her most typical films where she often played either an orphan, or a daughter of a widowed parent, THE BLUE BIRD gives her a set of parents as well as a little brother.

Black and White prologue: Set on Christmas Eve in a little German town sometime in the 19th Century, Mytyl Tyl (Shirley Temple), and her little brother, Tyltyl (Johnny Russell) at the Royal Forest are introduced trapping a rare little bird into a cage. On the way home, Mytyl is called over by Angela Berlinger (Sybil Jason), a sickly child resting by her bedroom window, if she would be interested in trading the bird with one of her possessions, but is refused. Aside from Angela's mother (Leona Roberts) who labels Myrtyl as a selfish child, so do her parents (Russell Hicks and Spring Byington), which explains why Mytyl is never very happy. Problems soon arise for the family when Mytyl's woodcutting father is called to war and to report Christmas day. As the children go to bed for the night, (shift to Technicolor) they each dream of themselves searching for the Blue Bird of Happiness, thus, meeting with numerous characters to guide them: Fairy Berylune (Jessie Ralph), Light (Helen Ericson), their dog and cat, Tylo and Tylette (Eddie Collins and Gale Sondergaard), magically changed to human form. While going through many aspects of human experience, Mytyl and Tyltyl visit the past, going to the land of memories in the cemetery where they are briefly reunited with their deceased grandparents (Al Shean and Cecilia Loftus); living the life of richness in the mansion of Mr. and Mrs. Luxury (Nigel Bruce and Laura Hope Crews); roaming through the forest where danger awaits, with uprooted trees and blazing fire; and moving into the future where the children visit the Palace of the Unborn where they make the acquaintance of children awaiting to be born before finding their destinies on Earth - but still no finding of the blue bird of happiness. Upon their awakening, further events await them. (While it would be asking too much to accept two children to be having the exact same dream while sleeping, but considering this to be a fantasy, it's possible acceptance to the viewer).

Other members of the cast are Thurston Hall (Father Time); Sterling Holloway (Wild Plum Tree); and possibly every child actor in the movie business appearing briefly as Gene Reynolds; Ann E. Todd, Scotty Beckett, Billy Cook, Diane Fisher, among others. Johnny Russell, the doll-faced little boy has that rare distinction of having and sharing equal time with Temple, while the lesser known name of Helen Ericson as Light stands out as a sort of glowing guardian dressed in white angel with that Heavenly glow.

First produced as a stage play, then adapted as a silent movie (Paramount, 1918), and much later retold again (20th Century-Fox, 1976) directed by George Cukor, regardless of its negative reputation, it's the 1940 edition that's become the best known of the three due to frequent television broadcasts starting in the late 1960s, usually around the Christmas season. Though there are those who claim this BLUE BIRD has laid an egg, overlooking some dull passages, it does contain some fine moments of honorable mention: lavish scale settings with crisp, glossy Technicolor; the beautiful yet haunting score to "Through the World so Far Away" sung by children on with giant ship with the golden sail on their way to be born, this being one of the longer dream segments of the dream; and one with an important message. Reportedly consisting of occasional song numbers, all except one, "Lay Dee O," sung and danced by Shirley Temple to her grandparents, remains in final cut. In fact, this is one of the few instances where the film comes to life, being a sheer reminder of formula Temple cheerfulness. Eddie Collins adds occasional humor as the humanly frightful dog while Gale Sondergaard adds tastes of cat-eye wickedness, but no threat to Margaret Hamilton's scene stealing Wicked Witch of the West from THE WIZARD OF OZ.

Formerly available as part of the Shirley Temple Playhouse on video cassette in 1989, and later in DVD format, THE BLUE BIRD has turned up on numerous cable channels over the years, ranging from The Disney Channel (1980s), American Movie Classics (1996-2001), Fox Movie Channel, and finally Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: December 20, 2015). With the reportedly heavy editing of songs and scenes to abide to Temple's attention throughout, it's a wonder how THE BLUE BIRD might have turned out theatrically in completed form of more musical sequences as opposed to its 83 minute release of the blue bird search for happiness? Whether it would have made a difference between success and failure is anybody's guess. (***1/2)

Shirley Temple's last lavishly-produced starring vehicle at 20th Century-Fox didn't come close to equaling the success (financial or otherwise) of 1939's "The Wizard Of Oz" from MGM (who had tried, unsuccessfully, to star Temple as Dorothy). This curious enterprise, based on the play, would seem to have a great deal in common with "Oz" (it even begins in black-and-white and turns to color), but the crucial elements of an identifiable plot are missing, and the young girl at the center of this story is consistently petulant. It was a fundamental error to make Shirley Temple unsympathetic; as the scowling, complaining daughter of a poor woodcutter, she wakes one night to an elderly fairy-woman knocking on her door and soon finds herself and her little brother on a search to find the Blue Bird of Happiness. The production is quite grand, but the saturated colors don't gleam and the set-designs are vast without having a sense of wonderment. As for Temple, she's a little bit stiff and self-conscious (odd for her), though her mature sarcasm in the prologue is very funny. Remade (disastrously, yet amusingly) as a musical in 1976. **1/2 from ****

Shirley Temple and Johnny Russell are the children of woodcutter Russel Hicks and his wife, Spring Byington. One day they find a blue bird in the forest and take it home. It escapes and they go on a journey to recover it.

This was a famous flop, and ended the unbroken string of hits for Miss Temple. Because victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan, everyone seems to have an explanation of why it failed out the box office. Miss Temple was aging out of her cute moppet appeal. It was overproduced, and the focus was on the Technicolor and fantastic sets. War in Europe made people impatient with the allegory. The movie's director, Walter Lang, blamed it on bad editing.

My explanation is a lot simpler: it lacks any sense of fun. It's all obvious allegory that is hammered into the audience's head like they are stupid. Miss Temple starts out as an unpleasant girl, and only gradually becomes nice. She doesn't dance, her singing is limited to one song. Her problems aren't real, so her overcoming them is muted in effect.

Maurice Maeterlinck's play may have been a triumph, but it was a triumph of spectacle. Spectacle can make a movie, but without any sense of engagement, it's empty. This movie is quite beautiful, in a visual sense, but its story telling, its message is mechanical an uninvolving.