The Blue Bird

Just now transformed from the family cat and dog, Gale Sondergaard and Eddie Collins don’t agree on whether to aid the children (Shirley Temple as Mytyl, Johnny Russell as Tyltyl), guided by the spirit “Light” (Helen Ericson), in their search, in The Blue Bird, 1940, from a Maurice Maeterlinck story.

Opening in black & white from a Maurice Maeterlinck fantasy (thus seen as similar to the previous year’s The Wizard Of Oz), Shirley Temple and little bro Johnny Russell are woodcutters’ kids seeking a precious bird, Sybil Jason their bothersome friend, in 20th Century-Fox’s The Blue Bird, 1940.

Now in a dream in Technicolor having found their deceased grandparents (Cecilia Loftus, Al Shean) in their search for a certain bird of happiness, Shirley Temple as Mytyl (Johnny Russell as littler Tyltyl) offers her only song in the picture, a traditional, in 20th Century-Fox’s The Blue Bird, 1940.