![the blue songbird reviews the blue songbird reviews](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/cd/53/60/cd5360229430ced87bd235cccd441cd6.jpg)
And here the movie goes to bright, brilliant Technicolor and it is a joy to behold. In the night while they are sleeping, brother and sister are visited by Fairy Berylune played by Jessie Ralph who sets them on the task of finding the Blue Bird of Happiness. The framing device and the concept of Father going to war are not in the original play. The Blue Bird is based on the play by Maurice Maeterlinck and differs quite a bit from its stage origins. What brings her out of her selfishness is the very real possibility of her Father having to go to war and be killed. She seems to care for her young brother Tyltyl played by Johnny Russell and not much else. Yes, Shirley is Mytyl in her first box office flop, living in a Ruratanian sort of Bavaria in black and white, just like Dorothy’s Kansas in Wizard of Oz. Made as a rather obvious attempt to copy MGM’s Wizard of Oz from the year before (although why 20th Century Fox would want to copy Oz is a bit puzzling, The Wizard of Oz was not a success at the box office and ironically neither was T he Blue Bird!) here is a film that lets our little Shirley play an obnoxious brat, self absorbed and more than willing to lie and cheat to get what she wants, a regular kid in other words. And as for 1930s child stars I’ll take the Little Rascals/Our Gang over Shirley Temple movies anytime.īut, I have to say there is at least one film Shirley made before she started to grow up that I absolutely adore, for several reasons, and that is The Blue Bird.
#The blue songbird reviews series#
I do respect that Shirley’s unflagging optimism helped movie audiences get through the Depression and offered hope to people who really needed it.īut when it comes to 1930s escapism I’ll take Karloff and Lugosi in the Universal horror Films, or the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers series of films or the early screwball classics like Bringing Up Baby and The Front Page, and certainly the Marx Brothers and The Three Stooges. Check out a great documentary (I’ll review it in the future) called The Elephant in the Room, the Baby Peggy Story.
![the blue songbird reviews the blue songbird reviews](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/BhYZIB6t7uk/maxresdefault.jpg)
And by the way, she was NOT the first child star. In ticket sales she was way ahead of even Clark Gable. She was the biggest star in the movies during the Great Depression. I do recognize and respect Shirley Temple’s place in film history. Even as a young kid I realized there was a strict formula to Shirley’s movies, namely her sunny disposition and optimistic outlook would win over cranky old adults and straighten out bratty little kids, who were usually the villains, in her films, and that was about all. To say I was not impressed would be a major understatement. So I can recall seeing Bright Eyes, the Little Colonel, Heidi, Little Miss Marker and what have you. My sister Judy, for some reason, had to watch those Shirley Temple films.
![the blue songbird reviews the blue songbird reviews](https://www.themusicalhype.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/jonas-blue-rise-a-positiva.jpg)
Louis, used to have a Shirley Temple Theater on weekend afternoons. I do recall seeing most of her movies years ago. I never was a fan of Shirley Temple, far from it.