The Emperor's Nightingale

(Review is of the Karloff narrated US release) A stop motion puppet tale narrated by Boris Karloff.

The story is framed by the story of a boy who is restricted by rules and can't leave his home or the grounds of his house.

As he falls asleep he dreams the Hans Christian Andersen tale.

Its nicely animated in the puppet style that George Pal made a fortune on as Puppet tunes and of the fairy tales that Ray Harryhausen did early in his career. There is a tradition of sorts in Eastern Europe, but frankly its not my style since its so intensive most of the image tends to be static, and often there are simply static shots with narration over it.

It was nice but it bored me and I zipped through most of it on scan.

Don't get me wrong if you want to see a well done version of a fairy tale see this but it can be slow. I can't imagine this longer, which apparently it is, the print I watched being ten to fifteen minutes shorter then the full version.

MY question is which came first this or the Warner Brothers singing Michigan J Frog? Its something to see but not seek out.