The Tales of Beatrix Potter
The Tales of Beatrix Potter (US title: Peter Rabbit and Tales of Beatrix Potter) is a 1971 ballet film based on the children's stories of English author and illustrator Beatrix Potter. The film was directed by Reginald Mills, choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton (who danced the role of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle), and featured dancers from The Royal Ballet.[3] The musical score was arranged by John Lanchbery from various sources, such as the operas of Michael Balfe and of Sir Arthur Sullivan, and performed by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. It was produced by Richard Goodwin with John Brabourne as executive producer.[4] The stories were adapted by Goodwin and his wife designer Christine Edzard.
| The Tales of Beatrix Potter | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover | |
| Directed by | Reginald Mills |
| Screenplay by | Richard Goodwin Christine Edzard |
| Based on | stories by Beatrix Potter |
| Produced by | Richard Goodwin |
| Starring | Royal Ballet dancers: Frederick Ashton Alexander Grant Michael Coleman Wayne Sleep Lesley Collier |
| Cinematography | Austin Dempster |
| Edited by | John Rushton |
| Music by | John Lanchbery |
Production companies | GW Films, EMI Elstree |
| Distributed by | MGM-EMI Film Distributors Ltd. |
Release date | 30 June 1971 |
Running time | 90 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | less than $600,000[1] or £256,000[2] |
The Tales of Beatrix Potter is the only feature film directed by Mills, who is best remembered as a film editor. Mills edited The Red Shoes (1948) and other films directed and produced by Powell and Pressburger that incorporated ballet.
Production
Sands Films, the production company that made The Tales of Beatrix Potter, is owned and run by Christine Edzard, the screenwriter and director, and her husband Richard B. Goodwin.[5]
It was the first collaboration with Goodwin by Edzard, who is known for her meticulous filmmaking, often based on Victorian English sources.[6] Their productions since include Stories from a Flying Trunk (1979), The Nightingale (1981), Biddy (1983), Little Dorrit (1987), The Fool (1990), As You Like It (1991), Amahl and the Night Visitors (1996), The IMAX Nutcracker (1997), The Children's Midsummer Night's Dream (2001) and The Good Soldier Schwejk (2018).
The film was a passion project for producer Richard Goodwin who succeeded in getting the film rights from Potter's estate. (The estate had turned down an approach from Walt Disney because they were worried he would distort the work.) Goodwin worked on developing the film for two years with his wife, designer Christine Edzard. Instead of a conventional screenplay, Edzard produced over two hundred sketches.[1]
Goodwin approached Ashton to choreograph. He later said: "I was not certain that with films dominated by violence and sex the time was right for such an explosion of sheer charm. But now I think the public is more than ready for something like this."[1]
The film was given the go ahead by Bryan Forbes during his period as head of production at EMI Films. He recalled that the EMI Board were not enthusiastic, and Nat Cohen had never heard of Beatrix Potter, but he had complete artistic control for any movie made with a budget under £1 million so could easily gain approval.[7]
Producer Richard Goodwin called the film "a diversion... a souffle... it is an entertainment."[1]
The film's working script was created from a juxtaposition of five of Beatrix Potter's Tales, The Tale of Jemina Puddleduck, The Tale of Pigling Bland, The Tale of Jeremy Fisher, The Tale of Two Bad Mice and The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, with visitors such as Peter Rabbit from other books, using the sketches of Edzard - co-writer of the screenplay, and the production and costume designer. [2] Although the ballet deviates at times from the plots, it retains the authenticity of Potter's original. The head of property on the set remarked that he had never seen a picture like this one in over 44 years, and the costumes travelled to the US as an exhibition on board the QE2 in the year the film was released.
Richard Goodwin and Christine Edzard, who were young and relatively unknown in the film and theatre world at that time, spent three years on the film, working alongside Frederick Ashton – former Director of the Royal Ballet Company and its chief choreographer for over thirty years – and John Lanchbery, composer and Director of Music for the Royal Ballet. The film cost £250,000 to make at a time when filmmaking was low in output, conditions were difficult, and funding was hard to find. Goodwin described it as “an act of faith”.
Conceived of as a filmed ballet in 1969, the couple's first approach to Frederick Warne, Beatrix Potter's publisher, was turned down firmly. However, their ideas and Christine's initial sketches began to win them over and while both Warne and Ashton were still considering the proposed project, and terms being agreed, preparations for filming took place over the following year. It was a risk, and Goodwin acknowledged that had Warne in the end still refused, they would have “been ruined.”
The idea started the year before when Edzard had travelled from Paris, where she was assistant to the designer Lila de Nobili, to work on the sets of Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968) in Rome. There she met Goodwin, associate producer for John Brabourne who was making the film. The two decided they would do something together and while in Britain meeting Goodwin's mother, Edzard saw and heard Beatrix Potter for the first time as Mrs. Goodwin read The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle to her grandchildren. Showing the “thoroughly English” book to Nobili, who was in Covent Garden with The Sleeping Beauty ballet featuring dancing animals, mice and a cat, Nobili suggested it as a project for the couple, and the Tales as a ballet was born. [8]
Reception
Box office
The film was one of the most successful of the Forbes regime at EMI Films.[9][10] It was one of the most popular movies in 1971 at the British box office.[11] By June 1972 it earned EMI a profit of £18,000.[12]
Critical
A 1971 review by Roger Ebert was favourable: "The stories are told simply and directly and with a certain almost clumsy charm. Instead of going for perfection in the dancing, the Royal Ballet dancers have gone for characterizations instead. The various animals have their quirks and eccentricities, and they are fairly authentic: The frog dances like a frog, for example, and not like Nureyev."[13] Anthony Nield wrote in 2011, "Tales of Beatrix Potter is one of British cinema's true one-offs, a film quite unlike any other. Ostensibly aimed at children, this adaptation of Potter’s various animal-centric stories was mounted by the Royal Ballet and choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton. The tales are rendered as a series of dances, loosely interconnected by the author as a young girl (played by Érin Geraghty) and her active imagination. There are no words, only music and movement as the performers of the Royal Ballet—in full animal costume—interpret her stories' simple narratives."[14]
The film's designer, Christine Edzard, was nominated for BAFTA awards for Best Art Direction and for Best Costume Design.
Home media
The film was released to DVD in 2004 and 2009.[15] A digitally restored version was released as a Blu-ray DVD in 2011, in commemoration of the film's 40th anniversary.[14]
References
- Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle, Jemima Puddle-Duck and Royal Ballet: Puddle-Duck and the Royal Ballet Bernheimer, Martin. Los Angeles Times 13 June 1971: s40.
- Moody, Paul (2018). EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema. Palgrave MacMillan. p. 42, 162.
- Yeatman, Linda (15 March 1971). "Tale of Beatrix Potter's Ballet". The Times. p. 9. Issue 58122.
- "Tales of Beatrix Potter (1971)". BFI.
- Elley, Derek (6 October 1992). "As You Like It". Variety.
- Ephraim Katz (2005). The Film Encyclopedia 5th edition. Harper Collins. p. 427. ISBN 9780060742140. .
- Bryan Forbes, A Divided Life, Mandarin, 1993 pp. 30–31
- Godden, Rumer (1971). The Tale of the Tales: The Beatrix Potter Ballet. Frederick Warne. p. 8-16.
- Vagg, Stephen (10 October 2021). "Cold Streaks: The Studio Stewardship of Bryan Forbes at EMI". Filmink.
- Walker, Alexander (1985). National Heroes: British Cinema in the Seventies and Eighties. London: Harrap. p. 114. Retrieved 1 November 2022.
- Harper, Sue (2011). British Film Culture in the 1970s: The Boundaries of Pleasure: The Boundaries of Pleasure. Edinburgh University Press. p. 269. ISBN 9780748654260.
- Moody, Paul (19 October 2018). EMI Films and the Limits of British Cinema. Springer. p. 83. ISBN 9783319948034.
- Ebert, Roger (19 November 1971). "Peter Rabbit and the Tales of Beatrix Potter". Chicago Sun-Times. Ebert rated the film with four stars (out of four).
- Nield, Anthony (6 April 2011). "Tales of Beatrix Potter". The Digital Fix: Film. Archived from the original on 2 April 2012.
- Erickson, Glenn (12 February 2004). "The Tales of Beatrix Potter". DVD Savant.
Tales of Beatrix Potter is a ballet film civilians can sit through. There's almost no plot and it will be slow going for anyone incapable of appreciating delicate dance steps. This category definitely includes Savant, but I was captivated by the film's production values and the amazing characterizations.