The Blue Bird (1940 film)

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The Blue Bird
Directed by	Walter Lang
Written by	Maurice Maeterlinck (play)
Starring	Shirley Temple Spring Byington Nigel Bruce
Release date(s)	January 19, 1940
Running time	88 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Blue Bird is a 1940 film starring Shirley Temple., based on a classic play by Belgian dramatist Maurice Maeterlinck. It was filmed in Technicolor and directed by Walter Lang. The film failed at the box office, but has found a cult following among Temple fans since its television airings of the 1960s and 70s and its reissue on video.

1 Synopsis
2 Characters
3 Trivia
4 External links

[edit] Synopsis

Mytyl (Shirley Temple), the bratty daughter of a woodcutter, finds a unique bird in the Royal Forest and selfishly refuses to give it to her sick friend. That night she is visited in a dream by a fairy named Berylune who sends her and her brother Tytyl to search for the blue bird of happiness. To accompany them, the fairy magically transforms their dog Tylo, cat Tylette (Gale Sondergaard), and (lantern) Light (Helen Ericson) into human form. The children have a number of adventures including a visit with their (deceased) grandparents in the Land of the Past, a stay in The Land of Luxury, an attack by angry trees and lightning in a forest fire, and a meeting with Father Time, young Abraham Lincoln, and their future sister in The Land of Tomorrow (unborn children). The dream journey makes the previously unhappy and selfish Mytyl awake as a kinder girl who has learned to appreciate all the comforts and joy of her home and family. Much like MGM's The Wizard of Oz (1939 film) the story starts in black and white and changes to technicolor for the magical dream sequence.

[edit] Characters

Shirley Temple.... Mytyl

Spring Byington.... Mummy Tyl

Nigel Bruce.... Mr. Luxury

Gale Sondergaard.... Tylette (the cat)

Eddie Collins.... Tylo (the dog)

Sybil Jason....Angela Berlingot

Helen Ericson.... Light

Johnny Russell.... Tytyl

Laura Hope Crews.... Mrs.Luxury

Russell Hicks.... Daddy Tyl

Cecillia Loftus.... Granny Tyl

Al Shean.... Grandpa Tyl

Gene Reynolds.... Studious Boy

Stanley Andrews.... Wilhelm

[edit] Trivia

Originally cast as the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz (1939), Gale Sondergaard was replaced by Margaret Hamilton when MGM decided to change the Wicked Witch from a glamorous character to an ugly one, and Sondergaard refused to wear the necessary disfiguring makeup.

In The Bluebird, Shirley Temple sings just one song titled "Lady O" in a scene at her grandparents' cottage.

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 of films. Audiences disliked the idea of Shirley as a nasty character needing to learn a lesson.

This was to be Shirley Temple's last child role. Her next and last role for 20th Century Fox at age 12 was as a pre-teen vaudevillian in Young People (with film clips from Temple's earlier films used for flashback scenes).

Supporting actors in The Blue Bird include Edwin Maxwell as Old Man Oak, Sterling Holloway as Wild Plum and former Our Gang actor Scotty Beckett as one of the Unborn Boys

Sybil Jason (Warner Bros' first child star) said in her autobiography My Fifteen Minutes that her role as (sympathetic) sick girl Angela was significantly edited down after protest from Shirley Temple's mother.