On the Twelfth Day...

I had been very impressed with the same director's THE STRANGER LEFT NO CARD (1952), a Cannes Film Festival award-winning two-reeler; in comparison, this Oscar-nominated British effort is a disappointment but, take on its own terms, it is decent enough. As the title suggests, this is inspired by the Yuletide ditty "The Twelve Days Of Christmas" – where a man showers his beloved with gifts for the duration of the mentioned period; the male protagonist (David O'Brien) here takes the verses literally and, soon enough, the heroine's mansion is filled to the brim with all sorts of presents…including a variety of animals and even people (so much so that the couple eventually takes off in a balloon)! Shot in colour and given the period setting (vividly rendered by designer Ronald Searle), the end result is quite pleasant on the eyes; still, the deliberately stylized treatment (recalling Powell & Pressburger's recently-viewed and equally average OH…ROSALINDA!! {1955}) ultimately proves incredibly corny – which renders the whole decidedly less palatable to this viewer! Incidentally, director Toye herself assumes the female leading role – and, for what it is worth, the only copy around is missing a bit of footage between the tenth and eleventh home visits!

This is a classic. I used to show it to my 7th grade students each year. We all enjoyed the film. It made the song it was based upon come alive in a humorous way. Not a word is spoken. All is done through mime and expressions/visuals etc. The creativity of Wendy Toye is very evident throughout the film. It makes one think about the cost in money and time True Love spends to win over his beloved. She does get a little annoyed with all the confusion caused by the birds and animals, but ah...those five gold rings over and over again!! All the servants eventually leave the home, crowded out by the menagerie. And, in the end, True Love and Wendy leave to live happily ever after!

This colour short was transmitted on BBC TV each Christmas in the UK for a dozen years from the mid-1950s onwards. It has not since re-appeared in the UK

Set in Edwardian England a young suitor attempts to woo his intended, Wendy Toye, by bringing gifts as denoted in the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas". She is at first charmed and delighted to receive "a Partridge in a Pear Tree". However the suitor feels obliged to follow the song to the letter - to the bitter end. Entirely wordless apart from the song itself, the most striking feature is visual.

The artistic vision behind it was Ronald Searle's, a famous cartoonist, illustrator and author for five decades whose work includes the title sequences to "Those Magnificent Men and their Flying Machines", "Monte Carlo or Bust" and of course the entire "St Trinians" series (Searle was the author of the St Trinian books).

The writing is rather on the wall for poor old Wendy Toye in this dialogue free musical adaptation of the "Twelve Days of Christmas". When her true love (David O'Brien) turns up to give her a partridge in a pear tree, she is delighted. Next day, well she gets another and two gorgeous turtle doves, on the third... well you get the drift and with her home rapidly turning into a menagerie, you'd think she might call an halt - but then the five gold rings come along and she thinks...? Clearly she'd never heard this rhyme before though and by the time we get to the end her home and her garden are no longer her own and her butler (Franklyn Bennett) has had just about enough of the maids, lords, pipers and the cacophony! Toye also directed this increasingly frenzied and creatively staged Christmas celebration and by the end of it, well I bet she never wanted to hear "Oh, For the Wings of a Dove" again. I don't either!

This is a treasure of a short, long missing from TV, and rare on video; a bringing-to-life of the old and familiar carol, illustrating in delightful detail just what can happen when one's Truelove gets carried away with Christmas gift-giving. Set in a blissfully picturebook corner of Edwardian London, the smitten Miss Tilly (in a charming performance by the film's creator, Wendy Toye) is be-gifted over the Twelve Days of Christmas by her natty, nifty and adoring Truelove, to the tune of partridges in pear trees, calling birds, french hens, turtledoves, gold rings, geese-a-laying, boys-a-singing, maids-a-milking (complete with multi-colored cows), dancing ladies, lords-a-leaping, pipers piping and drummers drumming! The mounting and resulting havoc becomes increasingly comic as this little film works toward its magnificent and uplifting conclusion.

Those of you who know and love the work of cartoonist and illustrator Ronald Searle will rejoice to learn that he created the visual design of the film, and his touch is apparent in every moment.

This has been an annual Christmas favorite of my family and friends for over forty years- -search for a copy diligently, because I guarantee it will be a favorite of yours.