The Singing Ringing Tree

The essence of childhood. All moral codes, conduct and courtesy as standard. Language no barrier the visual story is timeless. A must for all children. The German version of 'Beauty & the Beast' (a French tale).

As a small child I saw the broken up dubbed version in the late 1970's over a 5 day period on BBC tv. It cast a spell, which I never ever forgot and spent my life searching for. Now in my early 30's I tracked down a subtitled copy of the 1957 71ms film. Not what I remembered, but far more beautiful and artistically adventurous than I could have appreciated as a child.

As an adult the hard hitting message is obvious, as are the lack of special effects, so this film's use of theatrical staging (scale models) is slightly overt in modern context. This film is perfect for young children who are not yet desensitized by modern graphics, yet can still be touched by moral lessons. Nostalgic adults will love this film, but anyone who has never experienced 50's, 60's European Fantasy cinema will find this film too primitive.

This film is a story book come to life. Be it Hans Christian Anderson or the Brothers Grimm, it is pure 50's Technicolor magic. Very moral and sound, yet beautiful to look at time and time again forever. Moving Art.

It may not live up to my childhood memory of it, but I am so glad to have found the tape, purely because it is such a superior piece of film making that I know I will enjoy watching it over and over again. So much art in it to appreciate. In my extensive movie collection I have no other film that is Directed, Produced & shot quite like it. It is a valuable asset to the film collector. I fully intend to acquire other films in the 'Tales From Europe' series, as I detect that they are highly collectible. This is a big tip! Enjoy! :)

I thought this had been a bad nightmare, I had watched this as a child on a B&W TV and been terrified and traumatised by the Dwarf in what I could vaguely remember as a dark cave. I was speaking to someone this evening who said they had seen a clip on TV about a 60/70's programme called the singing ringing tree, as soon as she said it I knew that was it. So we looked on this site and low and behold there it is, I am glad it hadn't been a bad dream as I had begun to think over the past 24 odd years. The only problem is I'd forgotten about the man dressed as a bear and the mechanical fish, wish I had, as I must admit it has given me the heeby geebies, so I probably will have a nightmare tonight now.

Glad I wasn't imagining it anyway and would now quite like to see it, in colour of course!

Wonderful and fascinating as The Singing Ringing Tree is, myself and my contemporaries were totally traumatised by its images as young children. The man dressed as a bear and the dwarf terrified me and the fish at the waterfall made me very uneasy. The very nature of the theatrical effects and make-up was what I found disconcerting as a 7 or 8 year old. I watched it in a local cinema as an adult and thought that my demons had been exorcised but recently I saw a TV programme which featured a "mechanical" fish and my childhood trauma came flooding back instantly ! No film however violent or scary has ever had this kind of effect on me before or since, but please don't let me put you off from watching The Singing Ringing Tree !!

In the days of only 3 tv channels (1970s) British kids were treated to an eclectic variety of European television productions. Always dubbed, often in black and white and endlessly repeated. Much of it was excellent and fondly remembered by many.

However The Singing Ringing Tree was essentially a hammer horror movie for children made in East Germany. For those of us who saw it when very young, it become the stuff of nightmares filled with evil dwarf wizards, spoilt princesses made ugly by spells and a kind hero Bear. The production was all studio bound, but with a strange psychedelic atmosphere. I loved it.

The GDR did a good line in children's films during the fifties & sixties and like many of my generation I grew up on this macabre little tale televised in three parts under the banner 'Tales from Europe'.

I well recall being pleasantly surprised when I saw it again in the seventies and discovered that it had originally been in colour, and even more pleasantly surprised when it was screened at the 1990 London Film Festival and only then realised it had originally been a film.

Ironically it was generally agreed that the beautiful princess was greatly improved (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) by being made ugly by the evil dwarf with results that made her look like a kindly Vampira, while the most distressing aspect was probably the fate (ANOTHER SPOILER COMING:) of the giant fish.