The Blue Bird

The film is based on the eponymous play by Maurice Maeterlinck.

Soviet and American filmmakers made this film a joint force in spite of political disagreements in the midst of the cold war.

The film was shot entirely in the Soviet Union — in Moscow, Leningrad, Pushkin and Pavlovsk (in particular, near the Hermitage pavilion in the Catherine Park and about the Pill-tower and a Circle of White Birch trees in Pavlovsk Park).

The film was supposed to take part Katherine Hepburn and Shirley MacLaine, but both film star left the project before filming began.

Initially, the role of Dogs has been taken by the famous American actor James Coco. However, having arrived at the shooting in the Soviet Union, he could not eat local food: the only Soviet food that poor Americans could stomach was bread and butter. Eating exclusively bread and butter, James Coco in the short time get so fat that no longer fit into the costume, and in addition, such a diet is called the actor an attack of gallbladder disease. The result had to be replaced James Coco, George Cole.

The shooting of the film began on January 20, 1975 and ended on 11 August 1975.

While creating music for the film by American composer Irwin Kostolom and Soviet Maestro Andrei Petrov, a dispute arose: Petrov wanted to use in the score, American jazz, and the Coastal Russian "music of the boatmen".

Director George cukor recalled that during the filming he received the complaint on Jane Fonda from a few members of the Russian part of the crew that spoke English. They complained that the American movie star interferes with their work — that constantly haunts them and quoted passages from Karl Marx, trying to open a discussion on the Marxist philosophy.

Black movie star Cicely Tyson claimed that Director George cukor blamed her for what she brought to film numerous disasters with the help of voodoo magic.

Original operator of movie was Jonas gritsus, but at the insistence of Elizabeth Taylor and ava Gardner, he was removed from the picture and replaced by Freddie young. The fact is that typical for Grizza top dim lights not rejuvenated Actresses already not the first youth.

To create the climactic scenes with a huge number of blue birds failed to find any birds of a proper coloring, so that filming had to manually paint in a blue color a few thousand white doves.