The Blue Bird (1976)

Two peasant children (Patsy Kensit, Todd Lookinland) go on a quest for the Blue Bird Of Happiness at the bequest of Light (Elizabeth Taylor). This is the fifth film adaptation of the Maurice Maeterlinck story, the most famous one being the 1940 Technicolor version with Shirley Temple. This one was an Anglo-Soviet co-production filmed in the Soviet Union directed by George Cukor (MY FAIR LADY). The film looks like it was made in 1933, so one can only imagine how it positively creaked in 1976. Ostensibly a musical but the songs are forgettable and the choreography awkward and clumsy and performed by the Leningrad Ballet yet! Only the Irwin Kostal music (but not Tony Harrison's lyrics) and underscore display any sense of competence. Almost insufferably maudlin so that when Ava Gardner shows up as a debauched, lewdly grinning Luxury one wants to cheer! Jane Fonda as Night and Cicely Tyson as Cat (I'd almost call it her career low point if it weren't for THE CONCORDE AIRPORT '79) aren't so lucky. A very bizarre film. Cinematography by Freddie Young (DOCTOR ZHIVAGO) and Edith Head did the costumes for Taylor, Gardner and Fonda. With Robert Morley, Harry Andrews, Will Geer, George Cole and Mona Washbourne.