Prunella (1918)

When Tourneur adapted the allegorical plays The Blue Bird by Belgian symbolist Maurice Maeterlinck and Prunella by British playwrights Harley Granville Barker and Lawrence Housman in 1918 they had been successfully staged for many years opening in Moscow and on Broadway and everywhere Today the saccharine charm of these antimodern fairy tales doesnt work any more But undistracted by the meaning or action of the film we can enjoy the surface of Prunella all the better the dazzling sets and costumes silhouettes and painted backdrops created by the great art director Ben Carré in a fashionable Art Déco NeoRococo style