The Blue Bird (1940 film)
Encyclopedia
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 (which ultimately ended Temple's acting career) and losing money, the film was later nominated for two Academy Awards
. It is available on both VHS
and DVD
.
), 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.
Four-year old Caryll Ann Ekelund (credited as Caryll N. Ekelund), appears as an unborn child in The Blue Bird. She was the girl who tried to sneak on the boat. On Halloween
1939, Caryll Ann'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. Caryll Ann came from a show business family, and her older sister became the actress Jana Lund.
. 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
.
Fantasy film
Fantasy films are films with fantastic themes, usually involving magic, supernatural events, make-believe creatures, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered to be distinct from science fiction film and horror film, although the genres do overlap...
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
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
's answer to MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
's The Wizard of Oz
The Wizard of Oz (1939 film)
The Wizard of Oz is a 1939 American musical fantasy film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed primarily by Victor Fleming. Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson and Edgar Allan Woolf received credit for the screenplay, but there were uncredited contributions by others. The lyrics for the songs...
, which had been released the previous year, it was filmed in Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
and tells the story of a disagreeable little girl (played by Shirley Temple) and her search for happiness.
Despite being a box office flop (which ultimately ended Temple's acting career) and losing money, the film was later nominated for two Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
. It is available on both VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
.
Plot
Set in Germany sometime in the late 18th century where Mytyl (Shirley TempleShirley Temple
Shirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
), 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
Jessie Ralph
Jessie Ralph was an American stage and screen actress, best known for her matronly roles in many classic motion pictures....
) who sends her and her brother Tyltyl (Johnny Russell
John Russell (actor)
John Lawrence Russell was an American actor, and World War II veteran, most noted for playing Marshal Dan Troop in the successful ABC western television series Lawman from 1958 to 1962....
) to search for the Blue Bird of Happiness. To accompany them, the fairy magically transforms their dog Tylo (Eddie Collins
Eddie Collins
Edward Trowbridge Collins, Sr. , nicknamed "Cocky", was an American Major League Baseball second baseman, manager and executive...
), cat Tylette (Gale Sondergaard
Gale Sondergaard
Gale Sondergaard was an American actress.Sondergaard began her acting career in theatre, and progressed to films in 1936. She was the first recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her film debut in Anthony Adverse...
), 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.
Cast
- Shirley TempleShirley TempleShirley Temple Black , born Shirley Jane Temple, is an American film and television actress, singer, dancer, autobiographer, and former U.S. Ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia...
as Mytyl - Spring ByingtonSpring ByingtonSpring Byington was an American actress. Her career included a seven-year run on radio and television as the star of December Bride. She was a key MGM contract player appearing in films from the 1930s through the 1960s.-Early life:Byington was born Spring Dell Byington in Colorado Springs,...
as Mummy Tyl - Nigel BruceNigel BruceWilliam Nigel Ernle Bruce , best known as Nigel Bruce, was a British character actor on stage and screen. He was best known for his portrayal of Doctor Watson in a series of films and in the radio series The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes...
as Mr. Luxury - Gale SondergaardGale SondergaardGale Sondergaard was an American actress.Sondergaard began her acting career in theatre, and progressed to films in 1936. She was the first recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her film debut in Anthony Adverse...
as Tylette (the cat) - Eddie CollinsEddie CollinsEdward Trowbridge Collins, Sr. , nicknamed "Cocky", was an American Major League Baseball second baseman, manager and executive...
as Tylo (the dog) - Sybil JasonSybil JasonSybil Jason was a motion-picture child actress who, in the late 1930s, was presented as a rival to Shirley Temple.-Career:...
as Angela Berlingot - Helen Ericson as Light
- Johnny RussellJohnny RussellJohn Bright "Johnny" Russell was an American country singer, songwriter, and comedian best-known for his song "Act Naturally", which was made famous by Buck Owens, who recorded it in 1963, and The Beatles in 1965...
as Tytyl - Laura Hope CrewsLaura Hope CrewsLaura Hope Crews was a leading actress of the American stage in the first decades of the 20th century who is best remembered today for her later work as a character actress in motion pictures of the 1930s...
as Mrs.Luxury - Russell Hicks as Daddy Tyl
- Cecilia LoftusCecilia LoftusCecilia "Cissie" or "Cissy" Loftus was a Scottish actress, singer, mimic, vaudevillian and music hall performer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.-Family:...
as Granny Tyl - Al SheanAl SheanAl Shean was the stage name for comedian Abraham Elieser Adolph Schönberg, although other sources give his birth name variously as Adolf Schönberg, Albert Schönberg, or Alfred Schönberg. He is most remembered for being half of the vaudeville team Gallagher and Shean, and as the uncle of the Marx...
as Grandpa Tyl - Gene ReynoldsGene ReynoldsGene Reynolds is a former American actor turned award-winning television writer, director, and producer.-Early life:He was born Eugene Reynolds Blumenthal on April 4, 1923 to Frank Eugene Blumenthal and Maude Evelyn Blumenthal in Cleveland, Ohio, he was raised in Detroit, Michigan, where his...
as Studious Boy - Stanley AndrewsStanley AndrewsStanley Andrews was an American actor perhaps best known as the voice of Daddy Warbucks on the radio program Little Orphan Annie and later as "The Old Ranger", the host of Death Valley Days.-Early life:...
as Wilhelm
Four-year old Caryll Ann Ekelund (credited as Caryll N. Ekelund), appears as an unborn child in The Blue Bird. She was the girl who tried to sneak on the boat. On Halloween
Halloween
Hallowe'en , also known as Halloween or All Hallows' Eve, is a yearly holiday observed around the world on October 31, the night before All Saints' Day...
1939, Caryll Ann'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. Caryll Ann came from a show business family, and her older sister became the actress Jana Lund.
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 GarlandJudy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
. 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
The Screen Guild Theater
The Screen Guild Theater was a popular radio anthology series during the Golden Age of Radio, broadcast from 1939 until 1952, with leading Hollywood actors performing in adaptations of popular motion pictures such as Going My Way and The Postman Always Rings Twice.The show had a long run, lasting...
, starring Shirley Temple and Nelson Eddy
Nelson Eddy
Nelson Ackerman Eddy was an American singer and actor who appeared in 19 musical films during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as in opera and on the concert stage, radio, television, and in nightclubs. A classically trained baritone, he is best remembered for the eight films in which he costarred...
.