Red-Barracuda I remember back in the early 90's I was watching the TV clip based game show 'Telly Addicts'. It was never a good programme but on this night something interesting happened. Suddenly, from out of nowhere they showed a strange clip. It was a weird looking fantasy scene with a bear, a girl and a dwarf. Immediately I had a flash-back to something I had long forgotten – The Singing Ringing Tree! It was a very strange feeling to be reminded of something that I hadn't thought about for twenty years. Then it came back to me. Sort of. I recalled from the mists of my childhood watching a strange fantasy serial involving an evil dwarf and two other people who I couldn't quite picture. It must have made some kind of impression because I had sub-consciously never forgotten it.Since then I discovered that the show had affected many other people in a similar way. They had all seen it when little kids and had similar memories. The common thread seemed to be that they found the evil dwarf terrifying. In all honesty I don't remember the feeling of being scared but I certainly never forgot that dwarf. The show seems to have been serialized and shown in the UK first in the early 60's and then again in the mid 70's; it was the latter that I experienced as a pre-school tot. One thing I can be sure of was I really liked this as a little kid.Fast-forward to the present day and I finally decided to re-watch The Singing Ringing Tree again. They say you should never go back ladies and gentlemen. Should I have gone back? Well, yes and no. On the one hand, the experience of watching this weird East German fairy tale as an adult could never match the impact it had as three or four year old little child. And the considerable mystic quality of the distant and vague memory of it is something that is very specific and impossible to replicate. So, in watching it again, to a certain extent I broke the weird spell it had cast on me, as it never could be quite as bizarrely enchanting to me now as the enigmatic memory of it always was. Having said all this, this is an excellent fantasy film and a true one-off. It really does have an odd East European ambiance and its look and colour scheme are both fantastic. There's no question that this is a superior production of a fairy tale. The dwarf does make for a somewhat unforgettable villain. I loved the way he lurks undetected within the scene. He is seen hiding in holes in the ground, inside rock-faces, within giant shells or just malevolently looking on from atop a hill. The effects work, while crude, are somewhat memorable and beautiful. The freezing of the waterfall and the fiery flames at the end spring to mind as examples of this. They add to the over-all otherworldly aesthetic. Add to this a strange horse, a giant fish, a beautiful princess, a cursed bear and a magical tree, and you have the makings of something undoubtedly remarkable.While I may not have experienced the same kind of magic in returning to the realm of The Singing Ringing Tree as an adult, I'm still pleased I did. It's a superlative and strange film that deserves to be passed down the years to little children of future generations. And perhaps it will cast a spell on them

SHARON TARGETT People of my age all remember the same thing. If you mention The Singing Ringing Tree, they all say "not the dwarf". My brother was petrified by this movie as a child so to make him feel better I bought the DVD as a Christmas present for him in 2004. He still hasn't watched it as at today, 31 August 2006!!! I however borrowed it and watched it and remembered all the things I enjoyed about it as a child. The transformations of the Prince and Princess were as good, for the time it was made, as I remembered. The animals were the same, apart maybe from the fish! The fact it was dubbed into English didn't detract from it at all.

samsimpson65 I thought this had been a bad nightmare, I had watched this as a child on a B&W TV and been terrified and traumatised by the Dwarf in what I could vaguely remember as a dark cave. I was speaking to someone this evening who said they had seen a clip on TV about a 60/70's programme called the singing ringing tree, as soon as she said it I knew that was it. So we looked on this site and low and behold there it is, I am glad it hadn't been a bad dream as I had begun to think over the past 24 odd years. The only problem is I'd forgotten about the man dressed as a bear and the mechanical fish, wish I had, as I must admit it has given me the heeby geebies, so I probably will have a nightmare tonight now.Glad I wasn't imagining it anyway and would now quite like to see it, in colour of course!

Aberlass The essence of childhood. All moral codes, conduct and courtesy as standard. Language no barrier the visual story is timeless. A must for all children. The German version of 'Beauty & the Beast' (a French tale).As a small child I saw the broken up dubbed version in the late 1970's over a 5 day period on BBC tv. It cast a spell, which I never ever forgot and spent my life searching for. Now in my early 30's I tracked down a subtitled copy of the 1957 71ms film. Not what I remembered, but far more beautiful and artistically adventurous than I could have appreciated as a child.As an adult the hard hitting message is obvious, as are the lack of special effects, so this film's use of theatrical staging (scale models) is slightly overt in modern context. This film is perfect for young children who are not yet desensitized by modern graphics, yet can still be touched by moral lessons. Nostalgic adults will love this film, but anyone who has never experienced 50's, 60's European Fantasy cinema will find this film too primitive.This film is a story book come to life. Be it Hans Christian Anderson or the Brothers Grimm, it is pure 50's Technicolor magic. Very moral and sound, yet beautiful to look at time and time again forever. Moving Art.It may not live up to my childhood memory of it, but I am so glad to have found the tape, purely because it is such a superior piece of film making that I know I will enjoy watching it over and over again. So much art in it to appreciate. In my extensive movie collection I have no other film that is Directed, Produced & shot quite like it. It is a valuable asset to the film collector. I fully intend to acquire other films in the 'Tales From Europe' series, as I detect that they are highly collectible. This is a big tip! Enjoy! :)