The Blue Bird is a 1976 American/Soviet fantasy film

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 George Cukor

George Cukor

George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...

. The screenplay by Hugh Whitemore

Hugh Whitemore

Hugh Whitemore is an English playwright and screenwriter.Whitemore studied for the stage at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where he is now a Member of the Council. He began his writing career in British television with both original teleplays and adaptations of classic works by Charles...

, Alfred Hayes

Alfred Hayes (writer)

Alfred Hayes was a British screenwriter, television writer, novelist, and poet, who worked in Italy and the United States...

, and Aleksei Kapler

Aleksei Kapler

Aleksei Yakovlevich Kapler ;Kiev, was a Soviet filmmaker, screenwriter, actor, and writer. He was known as an anchor and director of the TV program Kinopanorama...

 is based on L'Oiseau bleu

L'Oiseau Bleu

The Blue Bird is a 1908 play by Belgian author Maurice Maeterlinck. It premiered on 30 September 1908 at Constantin Stanislavski's Moscow Art Theatre and has been turned into several films and a TV series. The French composer Albert Wolff wrote an opera The Blue Bird is a 1908 play by Belgian...

by Maurice Maeterlinck

Maurice Maeterlinck

Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck, also called Comte Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. The main themes in his work are death and the meaning of life...

. It was the fifth screen adaptation of the play, following two silent films, the studio's 1940 version

The Blue Bird (1940 film)

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...

 starring Shirley Temple

Shirley 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...

, and a 1970 animated feature

The Blue Bird (1970 film)

The Blue Bird is a 1970 Soviet animated feature film based upon the play by Maurice Maeterlinck. It was directed by Vasily Livanov and made at the Soyuzmultfilm studio. It uses a mix of traditional and cutout animation.-Crew:-External links:*...

. Unlike prior adaptations, the film received little-to-no critical praise and was a flop at the box office.

Plot

Mytyl and her brother Tyltyl are peasant children who are led on a quest for the Blue Bird of Happiness by the Queen of Light, who gives them a hat with a magic diamond that allows them to call forth the souls of all things, both living and inanimate. On their journey, they are accompanied by the human personifications of a dog, a cat, water, sugar, bread, light, fire, and the like. They visit the kingdoms of the past and future and the queendoms of night and luxury, at each place absorbing more wisdom. Eventually they discover the blue bird they've been seeking has been in their own backyard all along.

Production

The film was shot on location in Moscow

Moscow

Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 and Leningrad

Leningrad

Leningrad is the former name of Saint Petersburg, Russia.Leningrad may also refer to:- Places :* Leningrad Oblast, a federal subject of Russia, around Saint Petersburg* Leningrad, Tajikistan, capital of Muminobod district in Khatlon Province...

. Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Hepburn

Katharine Houghton Hepburn was an American actress of film, stage, and television. In a career that spanned 62 years as a leading lady, she was best known for playing strong-willed, sophisticated women in both dramas and comedies...

 and Shirley MacLaine

Shirley MacLaine

Shirley MacLaine is an American film and theater actress, singer, dancer, activist and author, well-known for her beliefs in new age spirituality and reincarnation. She has written a large number of autobiographical works, many dealing with her spiritual beliefs as well as her Hollywood career...

 initially were signed to star, but both dropped out of the production before shooting began. At times both work and living conditions bordered on the primitive, and the non-Russian cast found it difficult to cope with the severe weather and mostly inedible food. James Coco

James Coco

James Coco was an American character actor.- Early life and career :Born James Emil Coco in New York City, son of Feliche Coco, a shoemaker and Ida Detestes Coco, James began acting straight out of high school. As an overweight and prematurely balding adult, he found himself relegated to character...

, originally cast as Tylo, could digest only bread and butter and eventually suffered a gall bladder attack that necessitated his being replaced, and Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor

Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...

 dealt with dysentery

Dysentery

Dysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...

 and dehydration

Dehydration

In physiology and medicine, dehydration is defined as the excessive loss of body fluid. It is literally the removal of water from an object; however, in physiological terms, it entails a deficiency of fluid within an organism...

 throughout filming. Communication between the English and Russian-speaking crews was nearly impossible, and George Cukor frequently resorted to sign language in a feeble effort to make himself understood. He also encountered difficulties with Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...

, who kept trying to engage the Russians in political discussions, and Cicely Tyson

Cicely Tyson

Cicely Tyson is an American actress. A successful stage actress, Tyson is also known for her Oscar-nominated role in the film Sounder and the television movies The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and Roots....

, whom he accused of trying to jinx the production by casting voodoo

Louisiana Voodoo

Louisiana Voodoo, also known as New Orleans Voodoo, describes a set of underground religious practices which originated from the traditions of the African diaspora. It is a cultural form of the Afro-American religions which developed within the French, Spanish, and Creole speaking African American...

 spells on the set.

Cast

• Elizabeth Taylor
  Elizabeth Taylor
  Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
  
   ..... Queen of Light/Mother/Witch/Maternal Love
• Jane Fonda
  Jane Fonda
  Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
  
   ..... Night
• Ava Gardner
  Ava Gardner
  Ava Lavinia Gardner was an American actress.She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers . She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses, considered one of the most beautiful women of her day...
  
   ..... Luxury
• Cicely Tyson
  Cicely Tyson
  Cicely Tyson is an American actress. A successful stage actress, Tyson is also known for her Oscar-nominated role in the film Sounder and the television movies The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and Roots....
  
   ..... Tylette, the Cat
• Robert Morley
  Robert Morley
  Robert Adolph Wilton Morley, CBE was an English actor who, often in supporting roles, was usually cast as a pompous English gentleman representing the Establishment...
  
   ..... Father Time
• Harry Andrews
  Harry Andrews
  Harry Fleetwood Andrews, CBE was an English film actor known for his frequent portrayals of tough military officers. His performance as Sergeant Major Wilson in The Hill alongside Sean Connery earned Andrews the 1965 National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor and a nomination for the...
  
   ..... The Oak
• Todd Lookinland ..... Tyltyl
• Patsy Kensit
  Patsy Kensit
  Patricia Jude Francis "Patsy" Kensit is an English actress, singer, model and former child star, known for her television and film appearances. Her films include Lethal Weapon 2 and she has been married to rock stars Jim Kerr and Liam Gallagher, as well as herself fronting the band Eighth Wonder...
  
   ..... Mytyl
• Will Geer
  Will Geer
  Will Geer was an American actor and social activist. His original name was William Aughe Ghere. He is remembered for his portrayal of Grandpa Zebulon Tyler Walton in the 1970s TV series, The Waltons....
  
   ..... Grandfather
• Mona Washbourne
  Mona Washbourne
  Mona Washbourne was an English actress of stage, film and television.Mona Washbourne began her entertaining career training as a concert pianist. While performing on stage in the early 1920s, she found that she liked acting and became an actress...
  
   ..... Grandmother
• George Cole ..... Tylo, the Dog
• Richard Pearson
  Richard Pearson (actor)
  Richard de Pearsall Pearson was a Welsh actor. Notable films of his career included Brian Desmond Hurst's Scrooge as well as a brief appearance in John Schlesinger's Sunday Bloody Sunday and cameo roles in three films by Roman Polanski: Macbeth , Tess and Pirates...
  
   ..... Bread
• Georgiy Vitsin
  Georgy Vitsin
  Georgy Mikhailovich Vitsin was a Soviet and Russian actor.- Biography :Born in St. Petersburg, then Petrograd, in 1918 , Vitsin enjoyed a long acting career and continued performing until close to the end of his life...
  
   ..... Sugar
• Margarita Terekhova
  Margarita Terekhova
  -Selected filmography:* D'Artagnan and Three Musketeers * Mama, I'm Alive * Dog in the Manger * The Blue Bird * The Mirror * Monologue * Hello, That's Me! -External links:...
  
   ..... Milk
• Valentina Ganibalova ..... Water
• Yevgeni Shcherbakov
  Yevgeni Shcherbakov
  Yevgeni Nikolayevich Shcherbakov is a Russian professional footballer. Currently, he plays for FC Irtysh Omsk. He made his debut in the Russian Premier League in 2006 for FC Amkar Perm.-External links: *...
  
   ..... Fire
• Nadezhda Pavlova ..... The Blue Bird
• Grant Bardsley...Little Blue Brother

Critical reception

Vincent Canby

Vincent Canby

Vincent Canby was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.-Life and career:...

 of the New York Times described the movie as "two films that want to compete but don't, everyone being polite, accepting compromise, effectively neutered. One of these films is blandly American, like the sort of processed cheese sold in jars that can later be used as water glasses. The other is dimly Russian but without any real Russian character, except for the sets, which aren't great. They look like stuff left over from the Bolshoi Opera's last road tour . . . Spectacle for spectacle's sake no longer is the rage in this country. It can still work sometimes if it's put on a large patch of ice, but the romantic notions that motivate The Blue Bird are enough to send most American children, to say nothing of the ancients who may accompany them to the film, into antisocial states beginning with catatonia

Catatonia

Catatonia is a state of neurogenic motor immobility, and behavioral abnormality manifested by stupor. It was first described in 1874: Die Katatonie oder das Spannungsirresein ....

 and ending in armed rebellion . . . Mr. Cukor . . . seems to have had less chance to direct in this case than to act as the goodwill ambassador who got his actors on and off the sets on time . . . None of the English-speaking actors can do much but behave as if he was in a very unlikely pageant . . . The Soviet cast members, who speak in badly dubbed English, are no better except when they are given a chance to dance."

Variety

Variety (magazine)

Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...

said, "Nobody's going to laugh in ridicule at any of it (it's that good) but nobody's going to be strongly moved (it's that bad)."

Time Out New York called the film "a desperately pedestrian, hideously glitzy version of Maeterlinck's delicate fantasy" and added, "You'd never believe in a month of Sundays that Cukor directed it."

Awards and nominations

The film was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film

Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film

The following are a list of Saturn Award winners for Best Fantasy Film:...

 but lost to Oh, God!

Oh, God!

Oh, God! is a 1977 comedy film starring George Burns and John Denver. Based on a novel by Avery Corman, the film was directed by Carl Reiner from a screenplay written by Larry Gelbart...