''The Singing Ringing Tree'' (german: Das singende, klingende Bäumchen) is a 1957

children's A child ( : children) is a human being between the stages of birth and puberty, or between the developmental period of infancy and puberty. The legal definition of ''child'' generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger ...

fantasy film Fantasy films are films that belong to the fantasy genre with fantastic themes, usually magic, supernatural events, mythology, folklore, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered a form of speculative fiction alongside science fiction f ...

from

East German East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

studio

DEFA DEFA (''Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft'') was the state-owned film studio of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) throughout the country's existence. Since 2019, DEFA's film heritage has been made accessible and licensable on the PRO ...

. Directed by Francesco Stefani, the screenplay by Anne Geelhaar is based on a variation of "Hurleburlebutz" by the

Brothers Grimm The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm (1786–1859), were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers, and authors who together collected and published folklore. They are among the ...

Plot summary

The story concerns a beautiful but selfish and haughty princess who rejects the proposal of a wealthy prince. She scorns the gifts he offers her, and says that she will marry him only if he brings her the mythical "singing ringing tree". The prince locates the tree in the territory of an evil dwarf, who offers to give him the enchanted tree, on the understanding that, if the princess still rejects him, he will be in the dwarf's power and will be turned into a bear. Because the tree will only sing and ring when the princess falls in love with the prince, she is disappointed in it and continues to reject the prince. The prince is forced to return to the dwarf's lair and is turned into a bear. The princess sends her father to find the singing ringing tree for her, but he is met by the prince, in the guise of a bear, who gives him the tree on condition that the king returns with the first thing the king sees on his return. This turns out to be the princess, who is now delivered into the hands of the dwarf. The dwarf, seeing the princess's self-centred behaviour, casts a spell to make her ugly. The bear tells her that she will regain her beauty only if she changes her ways. Gradually she is won over by the bear and becomes beautiful again. Despite the dwarf's attempts to keep her and the prince apart, she eventually falls in love with him and the singing ringing tree finally lives up to its name.

Cast

In credits order. *

Christel Bodenstein Christel Bodenstein (born 13 October 1938) is a German film and television actress. She appeared in many East German (GDR) productions and is best known outside Germany for her leading role as the young princess in '' The Singing Ringing Tree'' ...

as the haughty princess *

Charles Hans Vogt Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English and French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''*karilaz'' (in Latin alphabet), whose meaning was "f ...

as the king *

Eckart Dux Eckart Dux (born 19 December 1926) is a German actor and voice actor. Biography His father was an Insurance executive. He completed his training as an actor with Else Bongers in Berlin and made his stage debut in 1948 at the city's Renaissance ...

as the handsome prince/bear * Richard Krüger as the dwarf * Dorothea Tiesing as the nurse * Günther Polensen as the captain of the guard * Fredy Barton as the minister *

Egon Vogel Egon Vogel (1908–1993) was a German stage, television and film actor.Giesen p.190 A character actor he amassed over a hundred credits during his career, some of them in minor parts. Selected filmography Film * ''Boccaccio'' (1936) * '' The Deru ...

as captain and master of ceremonies * Paul Knopf as the guardian * Paul Pfingst as Bauer * Friedrich Teitge as the gardener *

Maria Besendahl Maria may refer to: People * Mary, mother of Jesus * Maria (given name), a popular given name in many languages Place names Extraterrestrial *170 Maria, a Main belt S-type asteroid discovered in 1877 *Lunar maria (plural of ''mare''), large, da ...

(Anna-Maria Besendahl) as the herbalist *

Tony Bilbow Tony Bilbow (born 17 April 1932) is a British television interviewer, film expert and writer.''Who's Who on Television'' Independent Television Publications Ltd (1970) He was a presenter of BBC Television's ''Late Night Line-Up'' discussion progr ...

(English narration) as Antony Bilbow

Production

The film was shot in colour entirely in the

studio A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design ...

Potsdam Potsdam () is the capital and, with around 183,000 inhabitants, largest city of the German state of Brandenburg. It is part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. Potsdam sits on the River Havel, a tributary of the Elbe, downstream of B ...

, Brandenburg, East Germany. There was later confusion as to whether the actor who played the

dwarf Dwarf or dwarves may refer to: Common uses *Dwarf (folklore), a being from Germanic mythology and folklore * Dwarf, a person or animal with dwarfism Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities * Dwarf (''Dungeons & Dragons''), a humanoid ...

was named Richard Krüger and died in

Strasbourg Strasbourg (, , ; german: Straßburg ; gsw, label=Bas Rhin Alsatian, Strossburi , gsw, label=Haut Rhin Alsatian, Strossburig ) is the prefecture and largest city of the Grand Est region of eastern France and the official seat of the Eu ...

, or was Hermann Emmrich who died in 1995 and is buried in

Prenzlau Prenzlau (, formerly also Prenzlow) is a town in Brandenburg, Germany, the administrative seat of Uckermark (district), Uckermark District. It is also the centre of the historic Uckermark region. Geography The town is located on the Uecker, Ucke ...

in north eastern Germany. It is now thought that they were one and the same person.

Release

''The Singing Ringing Tree'' was theatrically released in East Germany in 1957, where it sold 5,901,141 tickets in the country of about 17 million. The film was then purchased by the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

and cut into three parts to create a mini-series with an English-language

voice-over Voice-over (also known as off-camera or off-stage commentary) is a production technique where a voice—that is not part of the narrative (non-Diegetic#Film sound and music, diegetic)—is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, th ...

track where the original soundtrack was simply faded up and down as opposed to being dubbed. According to the ''

Radio Times ''Radio Times'' (currently styled as ''RadioTimes'') is a British weekly listings magazine devoted to television and radio programme schedules, with other features such as interviews, film reviews and lifestyle items. Founded in May 1923 by J ...

'' entries in

BBC Genome Project The BBC Genome Project is an online searchable database of programme listings initially based upon the contents of the ''Radio Times'' from the first issue in 1923 to 2009. Television listings from post-2009 can be accessed via the BBC Programme ...

, it was first broadcast on

BBC 1 BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News television bulletins, ...

on 19 and 26 November, and 3 December 1964 as part of the '' Tales from Europe'' strand. It was then repeated in March 1966, November 1969, October 1971, September 1976, April 1977 and August 1980. The original film version has been released in many countries on VHS,

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

and

streaming services An over-the-top media service is a streaming media service offered directly to viewers via the Internet. OTT bypasses cable, broadcast, and satellite television platforms, the companies that traditionally act as a controller or distributors of s ...

, and on

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

in Germany by Icestorm Entertainment and the UK by Network Distributing. Both Blu-rays have the film in both its original

widescreen Widescreen images are displayed within a set of aspect ratios (relationship of image width to height) used in film, television and computer screens. In film, a widescreen film is any film image with a width-to-height aspect ratio greater than t ...

theatrical and 1.33:1 television aspect ratios. They also have the original German-language soundtrack with optional voice-over tracks in English, French and Spanish, and various extra features.

UK reactions

The TV series, partly due to its foreignness as both fairy tale and for the unfamiliarity of its German production, was 'indelibly carved on the psyches' as 'one of the most frightening things ever shown on children's television'. The release of the film on home video also spurred renewed interest. A ''

'' readers' poll in 2004 voted this programme the 20th spookiest TV show ever.

''The Fast Show'' parody

spoof Spoof, spoofs, spoofer, or spoofing may refer to: * Forgery of goods or documents * Semen, in Australian slang * Spoof (game), a guessing game * Spoofing (finance), a disruptive algorithmic-trading tactic designed to manipulate markets __NOTOC__ ...

of the series was created as a sketch in the last season of ''

The Fast Show ''The Fast Show'', known as ''Brilliant'' in the US, is a BBC comedy sketch show that ran from 1994 to 1997, with specials in 2000 and 2014. The show's central performers were Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson, Simon Day, Mark Williams (actor), M ...

'', entitled, ''The Singing Ringing Binging Plinging Tinging Plinking Plonking Boinging Tree''.

References

External links

* *
The Singing Ringing Tree
' at Cinema.de {{DEFAULTSORT:Singing Ringing Tree, The 1957 films 1950s children's fantasy films German children's fantasy films BBC children's television shows East German films 1950s German-language films German children's television series Babelsberg Studio films Films about trees Films based on fairy tales Dwarves in popular culture 1950s German films