The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1957 film)

rdf:langString The Pied Piper of Hamelin (1957 film)

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rdf:langString The Pied Piper of Hamelin is an American musical film that became the first television film when it first aired on NBC on November 26, 1957. It preempted that evening's telecasts of The Nat King Cole Show and The Eddie Fisher Show. Based on the famous poem of the same name by Robert Browning and using the music of Edvard Grieg, arranged by Pete King with special lyrics by 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. In contrast to the usual televised family specials of the era, the film was not presented live but on motion-picture film using three-strip Technicolor, which had previously been used on television only 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. The film's success spawned a record album, and the film was repeated on NBC in 1958. It was then syndicated to many local stations, where it was rerun annually for many more years in the tradition of other holiday specials. The film was briefly released to movie theaters in 1966, though it did not fare nearly as well. Years later, Van Johnson's performance was still so fondly remembered that he played a Pied Piper-like criminal called The Minstrel on the 1966 TV series Batman.