The Star of Bethlehem

Lotte Reiniger rarely chose original stories for her silhouette films. This one is no exception. What makes it exceptional is this is the earliest work of hers that I've seen in color.... and while people are shown in her accustomed and beautiful black figures, the angels who show up are white.

So how does her technique work against a colorful background? It took me a few minutes to grow used to it, and even then I find it a bit underwhelming, except for two sequence: the adoration of the shepherds and the later of the Magi are quite telling, because the color choices suggest stained glass, evoking medieval cathedrals and well suiting the religious theme of the film.

BEWARE OF FALSE REVIEWS & REVIEWERS. Some people only review one film. When it just one review you cant trust them no matter what their opinion may be. I have reviewed over 200 Holiday films. i have no agenda

This animated short tells the story of the birth of Jesus and the events that surrounded his birth. Well made and not insulting to anybody. If your looking for a well made Christmas cartoon that is about the birth of Jesus then watch this one. It is available to stream for free.

Her first job was doing cut-out titles for Paul Wegener's Pied Piper of Hamlin. The Start of Bethlehem was probably her's, made when she was about 21 or 22 in Germany. On Achemed she was using a double plane animation stand (long before Disney). She and her husband Carl Koch (who is credited on Star of Bethlehem) built all their own equipment. She moved, in the 1950's and 60's to an Artists Colony in the UK, run by the owner of Primrose Productions who colorized some of her older films and distributed them. Her independent works were later for the BBC and NFBC. Cathedral probably got this from Primrose, who probably ended up with all her extant holdings after her death. There may be leads to this in her book "Shadow Theater and Shadow Films" which, I think, has a filmography.

This may be the 1921 "Stern von Bethlehem" by Lotte Reininger. Many years ago, I picked this up on VHS. I have subsequently seen "The Adventures of Prince Achmed", and have realized that this must be by the same artists. The print on my tape was awful, but once you got past the credits, it settled down. If you click on the credited names in this website, Lotte Reininger's name comes up, referring to the Aladdin sequence in "Achmed", which I have heard was re-cut to stand alone. I think the "direction" for this version refers only to the spoken narrative, nicely done, by the way, but sometimes clumsily written. It would be nice of IMDb to tie Reininger's work together under her name. Of course, I may be completely wrong! I am hoping that this is the "Star of Bethlehem (and three Holiday favorites)" on Amazon from Westwood Entertainment. Any Reininger scholars out there?

The Star of Bethlehem (1956)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Pretty bland animated short tells the story that I'm sure most people are already going to know going in. While watching this film I kept wondering if perhaps it was produced to try and cash in on the success of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS from Cecil B. DeMille. I will admit that I liked the approach that director Vivian Milroy took in the visual style but this still isn't enough to make up for the bland storytelling. The actual look of the film was quite unique as everything in the background was in color as was any actual non-living object. The actual humans were always shown in shadow only and this mixed against the colorful backdrop actually made for a good looking picture. The problem with the short is that it simply doesn't feature any exciting storytelling. The actual story is going to be familiar to most so it doesn't tell us anything in a new fashion or an original way. Even at just 10-minutes the film drags along and becomes tiresome after a while.