A very rare film in its entirety. The Blue Bird is a 1918 film directed
by Maurice Tourneur in the United States, under the auspices of producer
Adolph Zukor. The story begins with two children, Tyltyl and Mytyl,
whom are sent out by the fairy BĂ©rylune into various lands to search for
the bluebird of happiness. Returning home empty-handed, the children
see that the bird has been in a cage in their home the whole time.
Tyltyl later gives the bird as a present to a sick neighbor. However,
the bird flies away and never returns. The moral is that happiness comes
more from the journey than the reward and that happiness is fleeting.
The
film was shot in Fort Lee, New Jersey when many early film studios in
America's first motion picture industry were based there at the
beginning of the 20th century. In 2004, this film was deemed
"culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United
States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in their
National Film Registry.