The Blue Bird (1940) on Netflix
G19401h 28mAdventureComedyFamilyFantasy
In Napoleonic-era Germany, Mytyl, a woodcutter's daughter, keeps a unique bird from her sick friend. The fairy Berylune sends Mytyl and her brother Tyltyl to find the Blue Bird of Happiness.
- Netflix3.1/5
- IMDb6.2/102,246 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Plot summary
The Napoleonic Wars are underway in Germany, where Mytyl, a woodcutter's unhappy daughter, comes upon a singular bird in the royal forest. When her sick friend Angela asks for it, Mytyl refuses to part with it, and her parents are ashamed of her behavior. That evening word arrives that her father must report for military duty in the morning. In a dream, the fairy Berylune appears to Mytyl and gives her and her brother Tyltyl a task: find the Blue Bird of Happiness. Berylune turns their dog Tylo, their cat Tylette and their lantern into human companions for the journey.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Blue Bird (1940)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- During a December 1939 radio adaptation of The Blue Bird on CBS Radio's The Screen Guild Theater, a woman rose from her seat and pointed a handgun at Shirley Temple as she sang, and police stopped her; the woman's daughter had died on the day she wrongly believed Temple was born.
- Gale Sondergaard was initially cast as the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz, but after the decision to make the witch ugly she refused the disfiguring makeup, fearing it could damage her career, and the role went to Margaret Hamilton.
- Despite a lingering myth that Shirley Temple was cast as Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz, she was only briefly considered: producers were unimpressed when they heard her singing voice, and 20th Century-Fox refused to loan her to other studios.
- Four-year-old Caryll Ann Ekelund, who appears in the film as an unborn child, died in 1939 after her Halloween costume caught fire from a lit jack-o-lantern, and she was buried in the costume she wore in The Blue Bird.
- Producer Darryl F. Zanuck made Tyltyl much younger than Shirley Temple's Mytyl because he felt a boy of closer age would have to be mentally incompetent to let a girl take leadership away from him, and he dropped characters such as Bread, Water, Fire, Milk, Sugar and Night to focus on Temple.
- While the screenplay was being written, Shirley Temple's mother objected that her daughter's character was "too nice" and that the script did not focus enough on her, and the standoff ended after Darryl F. Zanuck threatened suspension and the family agreed to proceed.
