The Blue Bird

After losing out on the lead in _The Wizard of Oz_, twelve-year-old Shirley was shuttled by 20th Century-Fox into this lavishly technicolored cash-in. It did better in theaters than _Oz_ but is all but forgotten today. Good to look at but rather stiff and charmless, with a supporting cast better suited to a Hitchcock film.

The film apes MGM's Wizard of Oz, but compares very badly. Shirley Temple treks through a dreamland with her little brother and magical companions on a vital quest: but really the quest is just an excuse to have the writers preach at us through the mouths of the characters in each neatly separated realm. Interestingly, instead of a traveling angel type who brings light into the lives of those around her, it's Temple who begins in darkness and must learn an important lesson before the end.

Hey look! It's Shirley Temple in The Wizard of Oz (1939)! Oh wait, this was a butchered imitation called The Blue Bird (1940). Suffers from copying Oz too much. You'll keep repeating "They did that in The Wizard of Oz, and that, and that.... and definitely that". Might fill a void with it's childishness and colorful world. Definitely has it's charms and does have a high curiosity value and becomes half magical along the way regardless of it's faults. I especially loved the dramatic forest scene!