"High above the city, on a tall column, stood the statue of the Happy Prince. He was gilded all over with thin leaves of fine gold, for eyes he had two bright sapphires, and a large red ruby glowed in his sword hilt" -Oscar Wilde
I decided to take another look at the 1973 animated adaptation of Oscar Wilde's, 'The Happy Prince' (THP).
THP is a fairly well-known story that I thought would be appropriate to share around Christmas time (although it is not specifically a Christmas story).
Before we go further into the re-view, let's look at the card and pencil.
The drawing shows the swallow (the messenger of the Happy Prince) perched on the prince's hand. The hand is, actually, my own, drawn from a photo. It has been a VERY long time since I have drawn a *four-fingered hand, so the art for this card is worse than usual. The awfulness is further aggravated by the fact I drew the swallow freeform, albeit, I drew (loosely) from a reference.
*the thumb isn't a finger---get over it! D:
As for the choice of pencil, I was going to feature the 'Herald' by Eagle Pencil Co., but opted instead for this 'Swallow' pencil (its name is very specific, so I'll likely not get another chance to highlight it). The 'Swallow' pencil is from an odd family of 'Made in China' pencils with funny names (usually of animals and plants).
I want to say these pencils come from the same factory as the 'Deer Brand' variety, but I'm unsure.
This 'Swallow' pencil is unsharpened; I did not draw with it.
Anyway...
I happen to have a literary copy of Wilde's THP story, so as we watch our film, I'll be interjecting stuff from the book. :3
By far this is the best adaptation of THP, thanks largely in part to the traditional animation and the superb voice casting (Christopher Plummer plays both the narrator and the Happy Prince).
Before the actual story begins, we are introduced to the statue of the Happy Prince by way of the town mayor ...whom I'm fairly certain is some sort of amphibian in disguise. Either way, the mayor is an insecure, unimportant character surrounded by yes-men, albeit he does share in the town's generally favorable perception of the statue: admired not only for its beauty, but for the lavish dreams and aspirations inspired by its contemplation.
The events of our story begin at the onset of autumn, in the countryside where a flock of swallows has taken wing for Egypt, where it will spend the winter. Only one swallow stays behind, for he has fallen in love with a reed (a blade of pond grass), who flirts and teases him with her unending bows and curtsies (our swallow is somewhat vain).
The swallow is voiced by Glynis Johns, though I swear she sounds like Robyn Moore (that does it! The first re-view of 2022 will be 'Dot and the Bunny'! ...but I digress). :P
As the weeks pass and the days grow colder, the swallow feels compelled to catch up with his flock. Alas, the reed is not so inclined to travel. Indignant by the reed's disloyalty, the swallow takes flight without her.
After a day's flight, the swallow reaches the town. The swallow alighted on the column belonging to the statue of the Happy Prince, for the column seems as good a place as any to rest for the night. Unfortunately, the perch beneath the statue proves not to be the driest place in town, after a few large drops of water fall upon the swallows's head.
As it is not raining, the swallow flies up to the statue to investigate.
It's a bit embarrassing, but this scene (and a few others belonging to the film) affect my vertigo. My imagination is such that I can feel myself upon that tall, narrow column (hundreds of feet high), with nothing but air all around me. I'm not joking when I say this scene makes me dizzy. @.@
The swallow observes that the statue is weeping,
SWALLOW (to the statue): "Who are you? ...why are you weeping?"
The following quotes are from the book,
THEHAPPYPRINCE (sadly): "I am the Happy Prince ...When I was alive and had a human heart, I did not know what tears were, for I lived in the palace of Sans-Souci, where sorrow is not allowed to enter. In the daytime I played with my companions in the garden, and in the evening I led the dance in the Great Hall. Round the garden ran a very lofty wall. but I never cared to ask what lay beyond it, everything about me was so beautiful. My courtiers called me the Happy Prince, and happy indeed I was, if pleasure be happiness. So I lived, and so I died. And now that I am dead they have set me up here so high that I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city. And though my heart is made of lead yet I cannot choose but weep"
THEHAPPYPRINCE (continuing): "Far away, far away in a little street there is a poor house. One of the windows is open, and through it I can see a woman seated at the table. Her face is thin and worn, and she has coarse, red hands, all pricked by the needle, for she is a seamstress, She is embroidering passion-flowers on a satin gown for the loveliest of the Queen's maids-of-honor to wear at the next Court-ball. In a bed in the corner of the room her little boy is lying ill. He has a fever, and is asking for oranges. His mother has nothing to give him but river water, so he is crying. Swallow, Swallow, little Swallow, will you not bring her the ruby out of my sword-hilt? My feet are fastened to tis pedestal and I cannot move"
The swallow is reluctant to help the boy, for he's known bad experiences with boys who throw stones at him. But, as the swallow says, they never hit him for he comes from a family famous for its agility!
This boasting occurs both in the film as well as the book (without much difference). However, the book contains an interesting quote from the swallow that is not said in the film. It's unrelated to the boy, and is said just before the swallow's boasting,
SWALLOW: "I am waited for in Egypt. My friends are flying up and down the Nile, and talking to the large lotus flowers. Soon they will go to sleep in the Tomb of the Great King. The King is there himself in his painted coffin. He is wrapped in yellow linen, and embalmed with spices. Round his neck is a chain of pale green jade, and his hands are like withered leaves"
I question how the swallow has seen the king. Sure, tomb raiders could have lifted the top of the coffin, but they'd not have left the jade chain ...unless a curse of some kind befell them first. Such mystery!
Anyway, the swallow acquiesces, taking the ruby to the weary seamstress and her son.
There is a moment in the film where the swallow files above the sleeping boy, for an instant, before the boy wakes up and says,
BOY: "How cool I feel. I must be getting better!"
The book explain this moment thus,
"The [the swallow] flew gently round the bed, fanning the boy's forehead with his wings"
Medicine swallow! D:
SWALLOW (upon returning from his errand, to the statue): "It is curious, but I feel quite warm now, although it is so cold"
So, yeah the plot is mostly more of the same: the statue descries some misfortune in the city, and the swallow is sent to through a jewel at whatever problem.
After the gift of the ruby was the gift of one of the Happy Prince's sapphire eyes, and then the other. The swallow pained to do this, knowing that by removing the sapphires, the Happy Prince statue would become blind Even so, the statue implored the swallow to do it (so he did). Because the Happy Prince statue was made blind, the swallow insisted he stay with him, against the urgings of the statue for the swallow fly to Egypt before the impending snowfall.
Despite how much I enjoy this story, there is one line in it that I dislike. The line comes after the gift of the second sapphire, to a little match girl who, on accident, dropped her matches in the gutter. The statue told the swallow that the father would beat the girl if she didn't bring home some money from her match sales. That's bad enough, of course, but it's the girl's reaction to the jewel that bewilders me. Her reaction is the same from the book as it is in the film.
From the book,
"So [the swallow] plucked out the Prince's other eye, and darted down with it. He swooped past the match-girl, and slipped the jewel into the palm of her hand. 'What a lovely bit of glass!' cried the little girl; and she ran home laughing"
So far as the child knows, she has a beating waiting for her---she didn't recognize the jewel as anything valuable, so what's she so happy about? ...then again, Gene thinks a hundred dollars can buy a house, so I can imagine what a piece of blue glass can buy, in the mind of a cub. :P
Anyway,
NARRATOR: "As the days passed, the little swallow never left the prince's side. He sat on his shoulders and told him many stories of what he had seen in strange lands"
What the swallow tells in the film appears also in the book, though the book provides more detail,
"[The swallow] told [the Happy Prince statue] of the red ibises, who stand in long rows on the banks of the Nile, and catch goldfish in their beaks; of the Sphinx, who is as old as the world itself, and lives in the desert, and knows everything; of the merchants, who walk slowly by the side of their camels and carry amber beads in their hands; of the King of the Mountains of the Moon, who is as black as ebony, and worships a large crystal; of the great green snake that sleeps in a palm-tree, and has twenty priests to feed it with honey-cakes; and of the pygmies who sail over a big lake on large, flat leaves, and are always at war with the butterflies"
THEHAPPYPRINCE (film): "Dear little swallow, you tell of marvelous things, but more marvelous than anything is the suffering of men and women; there is no mystery so great as misery. Fly over my city, little swallow, and tell me what you see there"
The swallow returns with a reports of poverty and injustice. The book describes the swallow's findings thus,
"So the Swallow flew over the great city, and saw the rich making merry in their beautiful houses, while the beggars were sitting at the gates. He flew into dark lanes, and saw the white faces of starving children looking out listlessly at the black streets. Under the archway of a bridge two little boys were lying in one another's arms to try and keep themselves warm. 'How hungry we are!', they said. 'You must not lie here,' shouted a watchman, and they wandered out into the rain"
After receiving the news, the Happy Prince statue tasks the swallow with a final errand,
THEHAPPYPRINCE: "I am covered with fine gold. You must take it off, leaf by leaf, and give it to my poor. The living always think that gold can make them happy"
...I could get into the realities and politics of all this ...but I won't. ^_^ Suffice it to say that money isn't always a cure: there exist many persons who are chronically homeless for causes that money alone cannot fix. :(
The swallow does as instructed, and the town is made better for it (because fiction). From the book,
"Leaf after leaf of the fine gold the swallow picked off, till the Happy Prince looked quite dull and gray. Leaf after leaf of the fine gold he brought to the poor, and the children's faces grew rosier, and they laughed and played games in the street. 'We have bread now!' they cried"
And so the swallow and the statue made the city a better place (for the time being). But soon came the snow, and then the frost. The swallow could survive the colds no longer, and knew he was going to die,
SWALLOW (film): "Goodbye, dear prince. Will you let me kiss your hand?"
THEHAPPYPRINCE (film): "I am glad that you are going to Egypt at last, little swallow; you've stayed here too long. But you must kiss me on the lips, for I love you"
SWALLOW (film): "It is not to Egypt I am going"
The swallow flies up to kiss the prince statue on the lips, and falls dead just after. The animation is fairly vague here as to whether the swallow was successful in kissing the prince ...at least it seemed so to me, as well as to this person who commented on the video,
"...is it me, or did I just notice that the swallow died just before he could kiss the Prince???,. I've watched that scene a few times now, and that's how it looks too me, if so... that makes that scene even more heart breaking"
I answered the comment, and I'll likewise dispel any mystery here. :3
From the book,
"'It is not to Egypt that I am going,' said the Swallow. 'I am going to the House of Death. Death is the brother of Sleep, is he not?' And he kissed the Happy Prince on the lips, and fell down dead at his feet"
So the swallow was, at least, intended to be successful (for lack of a better word). ^^
The prince's reaction to the end of the swallow; from the book,
"At that moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue, as if something had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped right in two. It certainly was a dreadfully hard frost"
With the morning sun came the mayor and his yes-men ...and if the animation is to be believed, the ice and snow clear away overnight as well. :P
Anyway, the mayor is appalled by the sight of the statue, stripped of its gold and jewels, as well as by the dead swallow on the ground beneath. The mayor orders his men write a proclamation that birds may no longer die in the square. Additionally, the Happy Prince statue is to be brought down and melted, so that its material may be used to make a new statue ...of the mayor, this time. :P
And so the statue was melted, melted all the way down to the leaden heart. The heart would not melt, so it was cast to the rubbish pile along with the swallow.
...Now, this very last bit seems oddly tacked-on, but as a Christian, I love it! ^^
From the book,
"'Bring me the two most precious things in the city', said God to one of His Angels; and the Angel brought Him the leaden heart and the dead bird. 'You have rightly chosen', said God, 'for in my garden of Paradise this little bird shall sing for evermore, and in my city of gold the Happy Prince shall praise me'".
:3
...So that was 'The Happy Prince' (1973) ...it's sentimental, but I very much enjoy it. :3
There are several other animated adaptations of the story ...and based on this image, it should be obvious some are better than others: https://sta.sh/01jfjuwsqz98 :P
For the most part, though, I cannot recommend any others that I've seen, save an honorable mention to Pink Fong's telling---to my surprise, they didn't entirely take the 'religious' part out, in that they used the word 'Heaven' to describe where the swallow and the prince ended up (albeit, I accept 'Heaven' is used broadly by many cultures). Still, I mention it. ^^
Anyway ...I still have some more Christmas left (including a Buttons and Rusty re-view)---hopefully I get to it in time.
