The Blue Bird (1976)

This film immerses us into a fairytale atmosphere. As for me, I watch it many times, by the way, both in Russian and in English. It's too pleasantly to realize that Soviet Union and US joined together: legendary Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner, Jane Fonda and outstanding soviet actors Georgiy Vitsin, Margarita Terekhova, Oleg Popov. I was a little child when I found this masterpiece...Even then it left an imprint in my heart, and I'll always remember it with great pleasure and kindness! And know I can recommend u to watch this film and enjoy the playing of the best actors of 20th century. Don't miss the fairytale

I thought I had seen bad movies but this is the WORST movie ever laid down on film. If the film used to make this movie had been simply used for toilet paper, wound around a film reel then threaded and shown through a movie projector, it would have been a much better movie and a plot might even have been evident.Please don't waste even 1 second of your life watching this movie. The only good thing that I received from this movie was the encouragement that a book I started writing (but quit because I thought it stunk) might be worth finishing, since ANY work of writing turned into a movie would be better than this one - even the directions on a frozen dinner would have been better than this movie, if made into a film.However, I must say that if you love the sappiest 70's flute riffs ever made, you will LOVE this movie.I see Elizabeth Taylor, standing at the gates of pearl, apologizing profusely and long for ever even CONSIDERING starring in a movie such as this.......and poor TylTyl, having to go back to his earth-bound 6th grade class and suffer the laughter, derision, and persecution from his school mates after the movie came out..........I....I...I'm sorry, the tears are flooding my keyboard such that I cannot continue...save yourselves and don't watch this movie!! rp

I remember hearing the horrendous reviews when this film was originally released. Thirty-three years later, I finally managed to actually see it on YouTube. My, oh, my. Considering the budget and talent involved, it is indeed one of the worst films ever made. Most often, it comes across as a filmed stage play - one with incredibly bad performances. The technical aspects are well below par. The whole naive "political" background actually makes the film even more annoying...did these people actually think that they were performing some sort of noble gesture, bringing the world's superpowers together? If you haven't seen this, really, I suggest that you skip it. It might play as "good bad," if you've had a few drinks with friends. But watching this sober, is just plain tedious.

On a level of polished film making, this is possibly one of the shoddiest big-budget films ever made, but for viewers with the right (admittedly warped) perspective, it's terrifically entertaining. Most bad movies are merely ineptly made and therefore boring. But this film reaches such a surreal level of ineptitude that the viewer can only wonder, "What did I just watch? Was that a movie or was I hallucinating?" The script here is so disjointed and bizarre, it gave me the impression of what Ed Wood might have done if he had tried to make a children's film and had access to real stars. The plot is indescribable, so I won't try. Some golden moments are Will Geer and Mona Washbourne as the children's grandparents singing a song about how boring it is to be dead; Robert Morley decked out as Father Time in a slightly morbid Land of Unborn children; and my favorite, Ava Gardener in the Palace of Luxury, pointing out to the young boy all the luxuries (all grotesquely personified): the luxury of eating when not hungry, the luxury of loving one's own looks, etc. When the kid asks Ava, "Which luxury are you?" she leers at him and says, "You'll find out about me when you get a bit older."I saw this film when it was first released. The ad campaign had made it sound like a charming children's fantasy, and the fact that it was filmed in the USSR brought out all the liberal parents and their kids. By the end of the screening, the theatre was empty except for my friends and me, rolling in the aisles with laughter. So, if you like inexplicable bad movies, the ones that make you wonder just what in the world the filmmakers thought they were doing, don't miss "The Blue Bird".