Editor's note: This is a nostalgic theater.

In 1959, as a gift for the tenth anniversary of the National Day, ten major buildings in Beijing were unveiled - the Great Hall of the People, the Museum of Chinese Revolutionary History, the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution, the National Agricultural Exhibition Hall, Beijing Railway Station, Workers' Stadium, the Cultural Palace of Nationalities, the National Hotel, and Diaoyutai. The State Guesthouse, and the Overseas Chinese Building that was later demolished. These buildings were later filmed in the same movie, with a magical little puppet leading the children to connect the classic route of the original Beijing city walk. This magical movie was "Little Bells" released in 1963.

"Little Bell" poster

The film has a unique style, witty content, and novel arrangement. It combines the story of a fortune-teller with a traditional Chinese puppet show. The full color of fantasy fairy tales seamlessly connects with the life style at that time. The "Puppet Party" in the dreamland makes the children once again Experience the magic of puppet show.

This movie was a regular on the Children’s Day screen in the 1980s and 1990s. Sometimes I would turn on the TV during the afternoon break from school, and I would see this magical little doll that was a bit frightening and hard to resist. Use his unique magnetic voice to "educate children". When I was a child, there were some hand puppet toys at home. I could put a set on my hand and dance around with my friends. And "Little Bells" brings a beautiful fantasy and expectation to childhood. I always feel that those hand puppets at home may one day come alive, be able to talk, and take us to play and adventure.

"Little Bell" poster

According to the memories of the leading actors who participated in the film at the time, in 1963, the Beijing Film Studio was still one movie short of completing the task for that year, so it found director Xie Tian, who was known for his "quick hands". Directors Xie Tian and Chen Fangqian were very popular with "Blooming Flowers" at the time. Feeling that there was still a lack of children's films targeting preschoolers, the two decided to expand in this area.

Xie Tian recalled in a later interview: At that time, apart from studying, children did not have as colorful extracurricular life as they do now. A few children's books and a few animated short films would be good. Therefore, in order to make more movies that children can watch, they frequently went to schools and kindergartens to observe and understand children, and collected a large amount of children's materials. ""Blowing Flowers" and "Little Bells" were created by Chen Fangqian and a few others in those years, based on the children's lives. We talked about the world, made up stories, and thought about it over and over again. , finally based on a very ordinary thing about picking up gold, "Little Bell" with a fairy tale color was produced."

As for the story, the plot of "Little Bells" is quite simple - the overbearing boy Xiao Man and his sister Xiao Jia picked up a puppet called "Little Bells" on the road. Xiao Man ignored his sister's suggestion to return the puppet to the troupe and insisted on Take the "little bell" as your own. Xiao Man ran into the park with "Little Bell" and fell asleep on the rocking boat. In his dream, Little Bell came to life and summoned a Pegasus to take Xiao Man to the puppet exhibition. Xiao Man and Little Bell invited tourists in the air.

At the exhibition, Xiaoman saw various puppets performing an overwhelming number of shows. Xiao Ling Dang took Xiao Man to the exhibition. While visiting, they introduced old birthday stars, shepherd boys herding sheep, beauties in ancient costumes, and even the puppets had a fierce table tennis match.

Puppet playing table tennis

The puppets invited Xiao Man to perform together, but during the performance, a giant who looked exactly like Xiao Man appeared in the sky and arbitrarily snatched away the little bell. Xiaoman woke up crying and quickly picked up the little bell and rushed to the theater to make up for his mistake...

The grown-up Xiaoman is also the "childhood shadow" of many people

"Educational significance" was an extremely important purpose in film creation at that time. Even though it seems that such a film has a strong didactic meaning now, it is understandable in a specific era context. The 1960s was a special "Seventeen Years" period in the history of Chinese films. There were not many children's films at this stage, and it was also an important budding period for the development of this film genre.

Children's films at this stage were full of revolutionary color and a vibrant atmosphere of life. In a batch of movies with children as the protagonists that were born at that time, dreams were considered a mainstream narrative - young protagonists with certain obvious shortcomings in the real world entered the dream through various chances and coincidences, and corrected them through what they saw in the dream. Disadvantages: This kind of narrative mode is not uncommon, and Xiaoman in "Little Bell" is no exception. At the same time, there are often some incredible mysterious power "props" in these dreams, and the "little bell" is probably one of the representatives of this era.

As the first film to be co-produced with real people and puppets, the vivid puppets performing on the same stage and the characters roaming in the sky are not only a magic weapon to attract children's attention and leave a deep impression on everyone, but also a challenge to the film shooting technology itself at that time. To this end, Xie Tian and Chen Fangqian collaborated with stunt designer Zhang Erzhan to design real people and puppets to perform on the same stage in the film. At that time, the film's stunt photographer Zhang Erzhan used China's first infrared moving matte composite photography system, which he had spent eight years developing, to shoot the scene in the film in which Xiao Man and Xiao Ling Dang ride a wooden horse together over Beijing.

Trojan flight

Nowadays, it seems to be an ordinary and even rough "five cents special effects" picture. Xiao Man, Xiao Bell, Trojan horse and the background were shot twice on a piece of film - the Trojan horse was hung up with a thin steel wire in front of an infrared light screen. Riding on a horse with Little Bell, using a light with heat-absorbing glass, two films, ordinary color and special infrared, were taken at the same time - the ordinary film only captured Xiao Man and Little Bell hanging in the air on the Trojan horse, while the background part Not sensitive to light, the infrared film only senses the part of the background that is not blocked by the Trojans, Xiaoman and small bells. Ordinary negatives are not developed for the time being, and infrared negatives are developed into black movable mattes. They are then overlapped together and loaded into a special camera. Then they go to high altitudes to photograph various scenes above Beijing's East Chang'an Street, the south entrance of Wangfujing, and Beihai. Superimposed with the first shot of Xiao Man and Xiao Ling Ding riding a wooden horse, it becomes a complete "Trojan Flying" shot.

Another thing that is more "fifty cents" than special effects is that the actors' daily salary is also a real "fifty cents". As a puppeteer at the time, puppet artist Guan Weiji later revealed that the filming cost of "Little Bells" was 900 yuan, and the actors could only get 50 cents after the performance every night. It is said that in order to allow Xiaoman and Xiaojia to coordinate their movements with the little bells in the film, the crew dug a ditch on the floor during filming, and the operator could only squat in the ditch and walk in the dwarf steps in the opera to operate the little bells. Or lie on the ground and operate a small bell. Little Bell is a stick-head puppet, but for the sake of beauty, Guan Weji can only put his hand into Little Bell's clothes to operate it. He said in an interview, "We are very good at handling puppets on the stage, but in order to reduce the height gap between the actors and the puppets during filming, we squatted to operate the puppets, and the movements were naturally not in place. Sometimes sawdust fell onto our necks. I had to endure it, it was extremely uncomfortable. After the film came out, it became less and less ideal after I watched it. I still feel very regretful."

Xiao Ling Ding and Xiao Man in the puppet troupe

The puppets that appear in the film include stick puppets and string puppets. The characters' images have been throughout ancient and modern times, and there are even puppets with foreign images. Although from today's perspective, a large number of puppet performances that have nothing to do with the main plot of the narrative make the rhythm of the entire story slow. Interrupted, but the joyful spectacles seen on movie and television screens back then were compelling enough for children.

Of course, for some viewers, the puppet image of "Little Bell" with an evil expression, a chin ready to be "dislocated" and a specially processed and strange voice is really a bit "scary", especially when they grow up and have Audiences who have had some experience in watching puppet-type horror movies look back and think about this puppet image from the 1960s, and it is reasonable to say that it is a "childhood shadow" after careful consideration.

"Little Bell" stills

All in all, the little bell that also belongs to "Childhood Memories" is more than 20 years earlier than other classics such as "Thunderbolt Beibei", "The Atmosphere Disappears", "Magic Watch", and even those that later created childhood for us. The creator’s “childhood”. Since then, the genre of children's films has evolved and developed more new aspects, integrating more fresh elements into the positive and high-spirited life style, and creating childlike, fantasy and trendy film and television images that generations of Chinese children will never tire of. , once became an important genre branch of Chinese films and has won many awards internationally.

Today, there are very few live-action movies of this type that can be popular for a while, and the new generation of children, who are rich in horizons and information, may no longer need such a little puppet in their childhood to lead them to travel in dreams. Children's films have gradually turned into adult feature films from a child's perspective. It is rare to see such bold and exploratory children's films as "Little Bell" and "Thunderbolt Beibei", which is a bit regretful.

Screenshot of "Little Bell"