User Reviews

It's a pity that the 1918 version of "The Blue Bird" suffers so much from nitrate decomposition. Were it not for that I would give it a full 10 points. Nonetheless, what we have is sufficient to give great pleasure and it is certainly far superior to the 1940 version with Shirley Temple.

Some of the scenes have a rather staged look but, even so, one admires the beautiful—often elegant—artistic consciousness in their presentation. This is particularly true of the backdrops. Generally, I thought the restoration was pretty good with effective use of tinting to make the most of the emotional atmosphere of the various sequences.

I liked the presentation of the message—always an important factor in a fairy tale. The quest for happiness which is always found to be closer than we expect, the discovery of joy in the joy of others, the beautiful and wonderful intangible world of the imagination and the truth of dream—all these are beautifully presented through the innocence of the children. And here one must admire the performances of little Tula Belle as Mytyl and Robin Macdougall as Mytyl's older brother, Tyltyl. Tula, particularly, has an engaging naturalness which is wonderful. Dog and Cat look forward to "The Wizard of Oz" and the actors certainly convey the habits of the creatures they portray.

The allegory with its spiritual message was reminiscent of the Narnian series of C.S. Lewis and the way the point was driven home at the end was very effective. Finally, I think that the music score showed excellent taste and skill in the way it was wedded to the film.

The Blue Bird is a beautiful film with a universal message.

Director: MAURICE TOURNEUR. Screenplay: Charles Maigne. Based on the 1909 stage play by Maurice Maeterlinck. Film editor: Clarence Brown. Photography: John van den Broek. Sets and costumes designed by Ben Carré. Presented by Adolph Zukor.

Not copyright 1918 by Famous Players-Lasky. New York opening at the Rivoli: 31 March 1918. 81 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: Two children set out to find the blue bird of happiness.

COMMENT: I much prefer the magnificent 1940 remake to this one. Admittedly, once the movie gets started (and its seems to take forever to get going), we are presented with some really magical sequences, despite Tourneur's disappointingly static direction. Only three times does he enliven proceedings by moving his camera. On all other occasions, it's up to the players and the lavish sets and special effects to stimulate the audience. Fortunately, the movie was obviously produced on an admirably large budget, and, by and large, the acting is most acceptable. In fact, the lead children are both charming and charismatic and it's amazing to learn that Robin Macdougall made no other films at all. The neighbor's sick daughter with the soulful eyes, Katherine Bianchi, also impresses.

AVAILABLE on DVD through Kino. Quality rating: 6 out of ten. Although presented in all the splendor of its original tints, the DVD has a surprisingly large number of important defects, including at least 20 minutes of worrying print deterioration, a missing scene of around 6 minutes in the middle of the film, and a concluding sequence that has almost totally dropped out except for three or four irritating freeze frames.

Taken from Maurice Maeterlinck's play (which was produced in the period immediately after Barrie's successful "Peter Pan") about 2 children who must go on an epic journey to find the Blue Bird of Happiness. Their journey takes them through the houses of terror, excessive wealth, and happiness. There are some very interesting scenes visually speaking. In the early sequences, we see the common household items come to life, such as milk (a lovely woman in flowing white robes), the family dog and cat (who bear comparison to the animals in the silent versions of "Oz"), a sugar loaf (amusingly portrayed by a man in a white tube costume with a pointy head) and most impressively fire (an interpretive dance with striking impact). Unfortunately some of these early scenes are almost ruined by the deterioration of the print.

Later they see some somewhat terrifying things as they must enter the house of "Mrs. Night". Upon leaving there, they encounter their dead grandparents in a graveyard, who remonstrate with them for not visiting their graves enough. That's typical of the many ways in which this film attempted to give children a guilt trip about not taking things in their lives seriously enough. I found it bizarre that their "dead brothers and sisters" were also present, and there were a full half dozen of them. That would indicate an infant mortality rate above 80%. There's an amusing bit where they are in some kind of house that symbolizes excessive luxury. All the "things" begin to turn from their mission and enjoy the luxury, including the Sugar Loaf who is being licked by a half dozen lovely ladies! They end up in the house of happiness, where they see a deified version of their mother and in one interesting bit they come upon all the children who have not yet been born.

The children who portrayed Mytyl and Tytyl were quite engaging, but most of the other performances in the film felt very 2 dimensional. Although there is some stylization, a lot of the shots feel very stage-bound. I think Tourneur should have strayed further from the story's original stage version and made it more cinematic in general. Also I think the film's story and its message are hopelessly obvious. There really isn't a feeling of continuity in the children's character transformations, they seem confused and at times foolish only to suddenly realize what's happening in the film's conclusion -- which might work in terms of the plot but it doesn't make this a richer film. In the end I think it has to be called an interesting failure by Tourneur in terms of expanding the scope of film fantasy.

Maurice Maeterlinck's play "The Blue Bird" was produced for the first time in America in October 1910 and was considered a success. If Maurice Tourneur's film productions of both "The Blue Bird" and "Prunella" had met with the success they deserved, they may have paved the way in the twenties for a fantasy film genre instead of the over population of sheiks and flappers!! Most critics were abundant in their praise - "The Moving Picture World" saw in it "the simplicity of childhood and the wisdom of deep and kindly philosophy", Photoplay also praised it as "one of the most important productions ever made" but unfortunately Motion Picture Magazine spoke for the philistine portion of the public when it said "Seven reels of children and trailing through fairy places with bread, water, light and fire is frankly tedious on the screen". The production values were moral and allegorical as well as beautifully pictorial and those of the public that rejected it were all the worse for it.

When Mytyl refuses to give her little bird to the sickly child across the way she and brother Tyltyl are visited by a strange old fairy who sends them on a journey of self discovery and to seek the true meaning of happiness. They first meet the spirit of water and fire that their mother had told them about (and they had scoffed at her), their dog and cat then begin to converse with them and tell them all the stories they could only bark and miaow out before.

The special effects performed by Ben Carre who was closely associated with Maurice Tourneur, are extraordinary. The children are magically dressed, spilt milk turns into a lovely maid and the fairy of light finally whisks them all to the Fairy Palace, flying high above the roof tops. However Fairy Berylune, who first came to the children has said that whoever finishes the journey with the children shall die - so the cat leads the party who will try to stop the children finding the blue bird. Only the faithful little dog promises to protect them. The Underground Palace of Night - Mother Night has two children, Sleep and Death (probably a bit heavy going for children in the audience) and Mytyl and Tyltyl also find ghosts, sickness, War and terrors behind heavy wooden doors - but no blue birds. They visit the graveyard where the "happy dead sleep" but at a turn of TylTyl's diamond it becomes a beautiful flower land. They finally find the blue bird at their grandparent's little house where they also visit their little brothers and sisters who died in infancy. Unfortunately, when they leave, the blue bird flies away. On to the Palace of Happiness where luxury and riches abound, then there is also the "Happiness of the Home", "Joy of Pure Thoughts" and "Springtime". Another amazing sequence was in the land of children waiting to be born. A ship was waiting to take all the little children to their waiting mother's arms.

Enchanting Tula Belle was born in Norway and was just wonderful as Mytyl, a real child if ever there was one. Unlike the two other youngsters in "The Blue Bird" , Robin MacDougall and Katharine Bianchi, she did have a reasonable career as a child actress before retiring in 1920.

Highly, Highly Recommended.

well. can't say this film was totally my cuppatea, but i am neither a true scholar of cinema and i often am put off by how disturbingly strange the overall effect of cinema silents are. i'm not the smartest on the block, but i don't think i'm a total slouch either. i can at least recognize the importance of something because of my partial familiarity with classicism, neo or otherwise. it was pretty obvious of the artistic and cultural importance of Maurice Tourneur's 'Bluebird'.

the real problems with this film more than likely have more to do with me. even though i love horror movies and ghost stories, i also scare easily. as a child i had many recurring nightmares that were more often than not, induced by the images i was exposed to at the movies. i admit it. i was one of those silly, wimpy little kids that was frightened by 'OZ' and flying monkeys. even though i love cinema, i can't say for sure if i ever really have gotten used to the whole thing. maybe that's part of the fun. let's hope so.

to be perfectly honest i found this movie to be more than just a little bit creepy and disturbing. to be truthful, i thought it was pretty weird. but it was what they say it is. beautiful, mysterious and haunting. unfortunately a little TOO haunting for some of us. it almost feels like having a actual ghost present in the TV room. if i was a kid again watching this, i'd be afraid of it. as a adult i'm not so sure i wasn't afraid of this. fortunately i saw this first as a adult because i could assess the images here better than i would have as a child. after all, don't they always say, "it's only a movie". repeat that thought two more times every time the cinema gets to you too much.

not to say that this movie doesn't have moments of charm and humour. once you get used to all that caked on silent movie make up all over those kids faces, they start to look a little more like cute, normal kids. but at first they were kind of off putting. many of the sentiments are well expressed with good insight and tell the folklore with great love of tradition.also the guy that played the cat was a hilarious trip to watch run around on all fours, and the scene where he gets into a fight with the dog is a real guffaw.

this also has some of the most beautiful fantasy images from the silent cinema era. a far cry from the often pedestrian imagery in the delightful and cute, but often hokey 'Peter Pan' by Adolph Zukor. love the silent 'Peter Pan', but this is obviously a more sophisticated film-work. and with due respect to James Wong Howe, the cinematography here is more accomplished and stylish. the whole thing was spooky, but definitely otherworldly.

it is very sad to note the condition of the film print here. much of it was severely deteriorated and neglected to a shameful extent. this should never happen to any film. that's why film preservation should include all film and television and not be left to personal opinion or pick and choose mentality. one person's garbage is another's personal experience. at least preserving films can tell us something about the time period from which they came and about the persons. no art form should ever go this neglected or abused like this. a testimony to the cruelty man shows against the things he creates in this world.

i enjoyed this classic very much. but i can't say children or families of today's commercial driven market will. most kids will probably think it weird and creepy, and their baby boomer and Gen.X parents will be confused by it. this film is probably best enjoyed by cinema scholars or people interested in the classical. whatever, it's probably only people with a learned education that will appreciate this. it's not something you might take to naturally. but who knows, wonders do happen and people can be surprisingly quirky sometimes. it's rare, like this beautiful film, but it happens.

a definite must see for silent film fans and scholars in the art of filmmaking. they're probably the ones who can explain this the best.

Was this written by the VFX department? Heavy on effects and light on story, a couple of kids from a poor family dream an angel takes them to heaven and reminds them of all the good stuff in life. To pull this off we get reverse footage, double exposures, stop animation, painted sets, creative editing and so on - all the high tech tricks of the era, which are still being used in cinema today, if a little more convincingly. The feel of the film is part Melies, part 1914 'The Wizard of Oz' - complete with humans dressed as animals - and part the dream sequence of Tourneur's earlier 'Poor Little Rich Girl'. Despite some campiness, the visuals are the most interesting thing going for it - there is some nice photography here.

But what is the good stuff the angel shows them, you ask? Well, mostly just pretty girls dancing in the outdoors, as it turns out. These images are meant to symbolise ideas, such as 'the joy of pure air'. The 'souls' of inanimate objects like milk and water and light are also symbolised, and guess what they turn out to be - pretty girls!

I have no issue with a moral reminding us of the natural virtues of life and the people around us, but a moral alone does not a great film make, and this film is sorely lacking in the most important element - story.