The Blue Bird / R.I.P. Shirley Temple Black (1928-2014) · 6:58pm Feb 11th, 2014
Shirley Temple Black died February 10th, 2014. She was 85-years-old.
In honor of her memory, I wanted to talk about one of her best films: The Blue Bird.
The film was based on a fairy tale written by Maurice Maeterlinck.
Fully aware of the irony, I will now attempt to express why I love The Blue Bird.
Premiering January 15, 1940, The Blue Bird was meant to be 20th Century Fox's answer to MGM's The Wizard of Oz, which had been released the previous year. In an imitation of the opening to The Wizard of Oz, The Blue Bird begins in black and white, but switches to color once magical elements begin to happen.
The Blue Bird was the first financial flop in Shirley Temple's six years as a child star. The character she played in the film, Mytle, was a nasty character. Audiences were used to seeing Temple portray saccharine-sweet characters, and found it difficult to connect to the mean-spirited Mytle.
Gale Sondergaard was another link connecting The Wizard of Oz to The Blue Bird. Sondergaard was initially considered for the role of the Wicked Witch of the West.
After the role went to Margaret Hamilton, Sondergaard signed on to The Blue Bird where she played the role of the devious cat, Tylette. It's easy to sympathize with her motivations to betray her owners. Tylette knows that if the children discover the blue bird of happiness that she would have to revert back to her former feline self and remain a “dumb slave to man” forever.
The Blue Bird is worth seeing for her performance alone. Imagine how differently things would've been if Sondergaard had played the beautiful and seductive Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz.
The Blue Bird touches on a lot of deep subjects, including family, life and death. The story follows Mytle and her brother Tyltyl as they embark on a journey through the past and future in search of the titular blue bird of happiness. At one point the children travel to the past and visit the spirits of their grandparents. The children are joined on their quest by their dog Tylo and their cat Tylette, who have taken human form, thanks to some fairy magic.
One of my favorite scenes in the movie is where Mytle and Tyltyl visit the spirit world and see the souls of children who are waiting to be born on Earth. 
Anything which has a beginning must have an ending. In order for a soul to be truly eternal, it can't have been created. It must have always existed in some form or another prior to being born on Earth. As someone who believes the human soul is eternal, The Blue Bird fits perfectly with my belief in the concept of a spiritual existence which predates our Earthly lives. At one point we see two lovers who are separated because it's time for one of them to be born. It's a heart-breaking scene. It also makes me wonder if Ponyville has a Pre-Equestrian Spirit World where ponies refine their talents until they can be born; only to have to rediscover their special talent during their mortal existence.
I highly recommend The Blue Bird. It introduced ideas and metaphysical concepts which challenged the predominant American ideas of the time. I think audiences were uncomfortable by anything which caused them to question their preconceptions. It wasn't a failure because it was awful movie; it merely failed to connect with an audience. Everyone knows The Wizard of Oz, but not enough people know The Blue Bird.
If you'd like to see a drastically different take on the same story, check out this trippy Russian animation from 1970.
Also, be sure to check out the anime series from 1980 entitled "Maeterlinck's Blue Bird: Tyltyl and Mytyl's Adventurous Journey."
It's pretty awesome.
And it contains the occasional fan service.
God bless Japan.
And God bless Shirley Temple. You will be sorely missed.
No shit?
Damn... That sucks...
~Skeeter The Lurker
May God bless her, and welcome her with open arms.
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wow... Damn.
Damn, that sucks
Was a great actress as a child.
Eyywoom... Sorrow, has filled my heart. May one of the last, live forever...
After watching that flick, I can say the following: while the story would have been a decent bedside fable, stretching it into an 80-minute production made it taste... lukewarm.
I could say, however, that I loved the acting of Shirley Temple, considering that I know boys and girls who are exactly like that.
Thanks for the heads' up, dude.