L'uccello blu

the blue bird from 1918 is one of the most beautiful, captivating films of all time. it is the story of 2 poor children who are visited by a fairy on Christmas eve. the fairy shows them how to see things through the eyes of God. she teaches them about what is truly important in life. they follow the fairy through many events and learn something new from each experience. if you have not seen this great silent film or have seen another version, then please take the time to watch this masterpiece, you will never forget it. the young girl who plays mytel (tula belle) is nothing short of tremendous. her acting is very natural and has a realism i've never seen in another child star. tula's facial expressions even without speech, is more effective than most child stars with both mediums. tula belle's performance in the blue bird is probably the single best performance by a child star of all time.

I found this 1918 version of "The Blue Bird" by accident. The film was based on the show by Maurice Maeterlinck, originally titled "L'Oiseau Bleu", and apparently had success on Broadway.

This silent movie was directed by Maurice Tourneur. The story springboards in the manner of Bunyan's pilgrim's progress as the "similitude of a dream." The shots, employing the rigid camera technique of the day, resemble illustrations in children's books from the era and remain quite beautiful over the course of various monochrome tintings.

So far so good, because this is a ...strange, strange story. The premise for the children's dream is that with help from the Blue Bird of Happiness we can see beyond the apparent nature of the perceived world of material objects and somehow grasp the spiritual essence of the merest of mere things. We will then stop coveting wealth, fame, and power, and discover contentment with the joys of (our existing) home and hearth.

Confined to a verbal description the premise seems more than a little banal, yet on film the concept allows Tourner-Maeterlinck to birth some of the oddest roles in movie history: e.g., check out Charles Craig as Sugar (yes, the real thing) and Sammy Blum as Bread (ditto). I don't know how "method" acting figures in all of this, but the result seems to be an attempted demonstration of Spinoza's view that apparently inert matter is somehow ensouled. Then again, encountering Bread and Sugar as just guys is less surprising after years watching all the animation of the inanimate in television commercials. For good measure the children's dream grants the household pets human speech and personality, revealing the pets' canine and feline characters as noble and sinister, respectively. That for me was about the only unoriginal thing in this one-of-a-kind viewing experience.

If only Maeterlinck could have tried out his idea in the Sixties, maybe with Timothy Leary as technical adviser... But I digress.

The two child leads, the characters named Mytyl and Tyltyl (easy to type on the script?), are effectively, if naively, portrayed. I also remember enjoying the choreographed sequence introducing the "fire" character. And the artistically accomplished use of silhouettes in place of live actors to present a party sequence deepens the credibility of a filmed dream.

The music-only soundtrack on the version I saw was marred by a flutter so bad I simply turned off the sound and missed nothing. Aside from a few brief rough patches in the images the print I saw was gorgeous. Based on the frequent use of tinting to signal mood changes I would even call this black and white movie colorful.

Theatrical adaptations of Baum's "Oz" books were running at about this time (a young Ray Bolger saw one, forming a resolution achieved years later as an adult), along with Barrie's "Peter Pan". In spite of its age you can see ingredients that would later appear in the 1939 production of "The Wizard of Oz". The Blue Bird tale was remade in the sound era in 1940 starring Shirley Temple. Intended to rival MGM's "Oz", it flopped. Another try occurred in 1976 as a U.S. - U.S.S.R. exercise in détente. Maybe Soviet censors saw the lively menagerie of physical things noted above as a creative application of the Marxian principle of "materialism".

The Blue Bird (1918)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Poor children Mytyl (Tula Belle) and Tyltyl (Robin Macdougall) are visited by a fairy (Lillian Cook) who takes them on a trip to see what's really important in life. THE BLUE BIRD was directed by Maurice Tourneur, a highly visionary director who actually does a very good job with the look of this film as it's certainly one of the more impressive films visually from this era. This was actually the first version of this story that I've ever seen, which is somewhat shocking considering how many there have actually been. This is basically a fantasy-adventure film as the children and the fairy go searching for the "Bluebird of Happiness" which they are hoping will cure a sick nature. The film really does seem like a darker version of THE WIZARD OF OZ and it's funny because if you've seen any early version of Oz you'll remember that many of the animals were played by humans in costumes and that's the same case here. I've read many reviews that say this makes a film look silly but I'd disagree. I'm going to guess that at the time people were very use to this practice and I'd argue that in today's time it doesn't look silly but instead it adds a surreal effect to the film. Another gimmick is that the kids are able to view the souls of various objects including fire and even bread. The visual effects here aren't ground-breaking and they're not among the best I've ever seen but they are still impressive for the time. I found the performances of the two leads to be very good as was Cook at the fairy who really gives a comforting performance. I think there are some pacing issues in the film and even at just 80-minutes the film is a little slow at times. With that said, it's still an interesting visual film and for that it's worth viewing.

Somewhere or anywhere, during a snowy winter, young Robin Macdougall (as Tyltyl) and little sister Tula Belle (as Mytyl) learn their neighbor's child is sick. The ailing girl thinks she might be well and happy if she could only have young Tyltyl's caged bird, but Mytyl decides the siblings won't give it up. That evening, they are awakened by a winged fairy, Lillian Cook (as Berylune), who sets them off on a quest to find the elusive "Bluebird of Happiness" and put it in their suddenly empty cage.

Companions like humanized feline Tom Corless (as Cat) consider sabotaging the mission, because he, canine Charles Ascot (as Dog), and other manifestations of inhumanity learn they will cease to exist if and when the children achieve success. Tyltyl and Mytyl search far and wide for the Bluebird of Happiness - meeting not only their dead grandparents, but also their future brother during their journey - but the creature remains hidden where they least expect to find it…

"The Blue Bird" is filled with beautiful thoughts from the original Maurice Maeterlinck play. Homilies like "Heaven is where you and I kiss each other…" seems as good a definition as any. With majestic allegory by director Maurice Tourneur, production designer Ben Carré, and their crew, it was probably unwise to try to improve this orchestrated silent version of "The Blue Bird" - and filmmakers famously failed twice. Despite the ravages of time, this is the definitive version of the classic story.

Regrettably, the film has deteriorated beyond restoration in some spots. Moreover, some cutting has been done. Most famous is the trimming of a nude child sleeping right of mother "Night" - still, the naked form appears full, early in the sequence. Probably, the censors left the long shots intact. The children were modestly and tastefully photographed, by the way. Also, it does seem like some exposition is missing about the diamond-studded hat Tyltyl is given - the turning of which prompts magic.

After the huge success of Mary Pickford as "The Poor Little Rich Girl" (1917), Mr. Tourneur was obviously riding a creative peak. Within a year, he had three more critically acclaimed classics - "Barbary Sheep" (1917), "The Blue Bird" (1918), and "Prunella" (1918). All three placed in "Motion Picture" magazine's year's best photoplays (at #4, #6, and #3).

Probably, "The Blue Bird" was too long and episodic a flight for most 1918 theatergoers, and the film performed less than spectacularly at the box office. Potential plot threads, like the Cat's mutiny, appear curiously underdeveloped. Still, the film's beauty shines through. And, the dream-like quality present in the tinted, flickering, wordless scenes only add to the magic.

Perhaps most incredible is the not original, yet startling in context ending - young Tyltyl (Macdougall) unexpectedly "speaks" directly to the audience (about the quest) while the once sickly, but now beautiful young Katherine Bianchi smiles knowingly at his side - sister Mytyl (Belle) is regulated to the background, most definitely pondering this latest turn of events…

********* The Blue Bird (3/31/18) Maurice Tourneur ~ Robin Macdougall, Tula Belle, Lillian Cook, Tom Corless

There seem to be only a few directors of cinema's infancy whose films are worth much attention; Maurice Tourneur is one of them. His films may not always be the most entertaining, but most of them that I've seen contain something that interests. "Alias Jimmy Valentine", for example, has major story problems, but the heist scene is outstandingly filmed for 1915. Here, too, the allegorical messages (the bluebird is happiness and such) are too sappy at times, but then there's an inspired shot or something else innovative.

The dark, flickering transfer of a deteriorated, bleeding print surely takes away from much of the visual qualities of this picture, but some of the photography and the color tinting shines through. Tourneur had some preparation for the dreamland journey of this film with the dream climax in "The Poor Little Rich Girl" of the previous year. The wonder and imagination of a child are well affected. Despite its age, the film's best element is still apparent; I think that is its awareness. Perhaps, most obviously, this film is comparable to "The Wizard of Oz" (1939), but more so to the 1914 trilogy, which Baum produced. The animal costumes are especially reminiscent, as are the cheap, but nice-looking backdrops and sets. Showing even more awareness are the trick shots in the way of a Méliès fantasy and the final shot where the boy turns to the camera and directly addresses the audience concerning the film's parable. So, to an extent, Tourneur overcomes the wear of age and the kiddy bluntness of the allegory.