The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1957)

Directed by

Bretaigne Windust

Genre

fantasy film, musical film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 27m

Rating

5.6 of 10 from 18 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This is a musical adaptation of the classic poem about a piper who is hired to rid a town of rats. The story is told almost entirely in rhyming verse and features songs set to music by Edvard Grieg.

whimsicalmusicalrhymingcolorfullightnostalgicfairy-taletheatrical

What happens

The Pied Piper of Hamelin is an American musical film based on the famous poem of the same name by Robert Browning and using the music of Edvard Grieg, arranged by Pete King with new lyrics by Hal Stanley and Irving Taylor. It stars Van Johnson, Claude Rains (in his only singing and dancing role), Lori Nelson, Jim Backus and Kay Starr. It was directed by Broadway veteran Bretaigne Windust. Nearly all of the dialogue in The Pied Piper of Hamelin is spoken in rhyme, much of it directly lifted from Browning's poem. Initially airing on NBC on November 26, 1957, The Pied Piper of Hamelin was the first television film not presented live, in contrast to the usual televised family specials of the era, but on motion picture film using three-strip Technicolor, a tactic whose previous use on television was solely for the one-hour science specials Our Mr. Sun and Hemo the Magnificent. Theatrical prints erroneously bill the film as having been made in Eastmancolor. Preempting that evening's telecasts of The Nat King Cole Show and The Eddie Fisher Show, the film's success spawned a record album, and it re-aired on NBC in 1958 before syndication on various local stations, where it was rerun annually in the tradition of other holiday specials. It received a brief theatrical release in 1966, though it did not fare nearly as well. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• Fluteman (1982)
• Electric Piper (2003)
• Cinderella (1957)
• The Pied Piper of Hamlin (1992)
• The Pied Piper (1985)
• Abra Cadabra (1983)
• The Seventh Seal (1957)
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937)