THE BLUE BIRD

New Zealand Listener, Volume 4, Issue 81, 10 January 1941, Page 14

THE BLUE BIRD

(Twentieth Century-Fox)

ITH shame I must confess that I have never read Maeterlinck’s " The Blue Bird," and so I am not a fit person to pass iudement on

the authenticity of Twentieth CenturyFox’s technicolour film. I shall assume that there are a number of people as lamentably ignorant as myself, and explain that "The Blue Bird" is the story of a little girl who isn’t as happy and contented with her small-girl life as she should be. To her, one night, comes an elderly fairy who orders her and her small brother out into the world to find the blue bird of happiness, With another ethereal creature, Light, to help her, she visits the Past, the Future, and the fantastic mansion of Mr. and Mrs. Luxury. Nowhere does she find the blue bird, but waking the next morning from her dream wanderings, she sees that a common, bedraggled forest bird she had caught in a trap the day before has turned blue, and so she is taught the lesson that true happiness lies in your own heart and in the things around you. From the box office point of view I suppose the important thing about "The Blue Bird" is that the part of Mytyl is played by Shirley Temple. There can be no doubt that little Miss Temple is growing up, and maybe her performance smacks a little of her long years of experience on the screen, but personally I could find little to find fault with. The strongest characters are Tylo, the dog who changes in the wink of an eye into a doggy looking man, and Tylette, the cat who similarly changes into an exceedingly feline woman. To Gale Sondergaard as Tylette and Eddie Collins as Tylo, high marks. "The Blue Bird" is pure fantasy, and it is treated simply, as fantasies should be. It may have been the lingering emotions of Christmas, but I enjoyed it.