Powerful

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The Star of Bethlehem (1956) * 1/2 (out of 4)Pretty bland animated short tells the story that I'm sure most people are already going to know going in. While watching this film I kept wondering if perhaps it was produced to try and cash in on the success of THE TEN COMMANDMENTS from Cecil B. DeMille. I will admit that I liked the approach that director Vivian Milroy took in the visual style but this still isn't enough to make up for the bland storytelling. The actual look of the film was quite unique as everything in the background was in color as was any actual non-living object. The actual humans were always shown in shadow only and this mixed against the colorful backdrop actually made for a good looking picture. The problem with the short is that it simply doesn't feature any exciting storytelling. The actual story is going to be familiar to most so it doesn't tell us anything in a new fashion or an original way. Even at just 10-minutes the film drags along and becomes tiresome after a while.

"Star of Bethlehem" (no article), A Primrose Production, was released in England by Archway in February, 1957. It ran 18 minutes. Publicity for the movie proclaimed that it marked "the first time Lotte Reiniger has worked in colour (sic)." Reiniger is credited with "Design". She and her husband, Carl Koch, are credited as "Animators". The director was Vivian Milroy; the film editor, Reg Spragg; music was composed by Peter Gellhorn. And there was a spoken commentary by Anthony Jacobs. Producers Louis Hagen and Richard Kaplan sold the short to Cathedral Films in the USA. I've not seen the U.S. version, but I doubt that it included "Reiniger's dramatically grotesque devils that vividly evoke medieval German illustrations."

Her first job was doing cut-out titles for Paul Wegener's Pied Piper of Hamlin. The Start of Bethlehem was probably her's, made when she was about 21 or 22 in Germany. On Achemed she was using a double plane animation stand (long before Disney). She and her husband Carl Koch (who is credited on Star of Bethlehem) built all their own equipment. She moved, in the 1950's and 60's to an Artists Colony in the UK, run by the owner of Primrose Productions who colorized some of her older films and distributed them. Her independent works were later for the BBC and NFBC. Cathedral probably got this from Primrose, who probably ended up with all her extant holdings after her death. There may be leads to this in her book "Shadow Theater and Shadow Films" which, I think, has a filmography.

This may be the 1921 "Stern von Bethlehem" by Lotte Reininger. Many years ago, I picked this up on VHS. I have subsequently seen "The Adventures of Prince Achmed", and have realized that this must be by the same artists. The print on my tape was awful, but once you got past the credits, it settled down. If you click on the credited names in this website, Lotte Reininger's name comes up, referring to the Aladdin sequence in "Achmed", which I have heard was re-cut to stand alone. I think the "direction" for this version refers only to the spoken narrative, nicely done, by the way, but sometimes clumsily written. It would be nice of IMDb to tie Reininger's work together under her name. Of course, I may be completely wrong! I am hoping that this is the "Star of Bethlehem (and three Holiday favorites)" on Amazon from Westwood Entertainment. Any Reininger scholars out there?