The Tales of Beatrix Potter (US title: Peter Rabbit and Tales of Beatrix Potter) is a 1971 ballet film based on the children's stories of English author and illustrator Beatrix Potter.  The film was directed by Reginald Mills, choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton (who danced the role of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle), and featured dancers from The Royal Ballet. The musical score was arranged by John Lanchbery from various sources, such as the operas of Michael Balfe and of Sir Arthur Sullivan, and performed by the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House. It was produced by Richard Goodwin with John Brabourne as executive producer. The stories were adapted by Goodwin and his wife designer Christine Edzard.

The Tales of Beatrix Potter is the only feature film directed by Mills, who is best remembered as a film editor. Mills edited The Red Shoes (1948) and other films directed and produced by Powell and Pressburger that incorporated ballet.

Sands Films, the production company that made The Tales of Beatrix Potter, is owned and run by Christine Edzard, the screenwriter and director, and her husband Richard B. Goodwin. It was the first collaboration with Goodwin by Edzard, who is known for her meticulous filmmaking, often based on Victorian English sources. Their  productions since  include Stories from a Flying Trunk (1979),  The Nightingale (1981), Biddy (1983), Little Dorrit (1987), The Fool (1990), As You Like It (1991), Amahl and the Night Visitors (1996), The IMAX Nutcracker (1997), The Children's Midsummer Night's Dream (2001) and The Good Soldier Schwejk (2018).

Production

Development
The idea started in 1968 before when Christine Edzard had travelled from Paris, where she was assistant to the designer Lila de Nobili, to work on the sets of Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (1968) in Rome. There she met Goodwin, associate producer for John Brabourne who was making the film, and the two became a couple. The two decided they would do something together and while in Britain meeting Goodwin's mother, Edzard saw and heard Beatrix Potter for the first time as Mrs. Goodwin read The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle to her grandchildren. Showing the “thoroughly English” book to Nobili, who was in Covent Garden with The Sleeping Beauty ballet featuring dancing animals, mice and a cat, Nobili suggested it as a project for the couple, and the Tales as a ballet was born. 

Conceived of as a filmed ballet, they approached Frederick Ashton, former director of the Royal Ballet, to choreograph. Ashton later said: "I was not certain that with films dominated by violence and sex the time was right for such an explosion of sheer charm. But now I think the public is more than ready for something like this."

The couple's first approach to Frederick Warne, Beatrix Potter's publisher, was turned down firmly.  (The estate had turned down an approach from Walt Disney because they were worried he would distort the work.) However, their ideas and Christine's initial sketches began to win them over and while both Warne and Ashton were still considering the proposed project, and terms being agreed, preparations for filming took place over the following year. It was a risk, and Goodwin acknowledged that had Warne in the end still refused, they would have “been ruined.”

Goodwin succeeded in getting the film rights from Potter's estate. Instead of a conventional screenplay, Edzard produced over two hundred sketches. The film's working script was created from a juxtaposition of five of Beatrix Potter's Tales, The Tale of Jemina Puddleduck, The Tale of Pigling Bland, The Tale of Jeremy Fisher, The Tale of Two Bad Mice and The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin, with visitors such as Peter Rabbit from other books,  using the sketches of Edzard - co-writer of the screenplay, and the production and costume designer.  

Although the ballet deviates at times from the plots, it retains the authenticity of Potter's original. The head of property on the set remarked that he had never seen a picture like this one in over 44 years, and the costumes travelled to the US as an exhibition on board the QE2 in the year the film was released. 

John Brabourne said Goodwin and Edzard "made all the costumes in their own house and we used my production company. Christine brought in that fantastic man, Rotislav Doboujinsky, who did the masks. It was all their conception, their idea, so I got behind it and pushed it but I thought it only fair that Richard should have the Producer credit."

The film was given the go ahead by Bryan Forbes during his period as head of production at EMI Films. He recalled that the EMI Board were not enthusiastic, and Nat Cohen had never heard of Beatrix Potter, but Forbes had complete artistic control for any movie made with a budget under £1 million so could easily gain approval. "We were extremely lucky," said Brabourne about Forbes.

Producer Richard Goodwin called the film "a diversion... a souffle... it is an entertainment."

Shooting
Filming started in May 1970 at EMI's Elstree Studios where the unit was based for five weeks. There had already been second unit photography done at the Lakes District.

Release
The film was given a Royal premiere in front of Queen Elizabeth II on 1 April 1970.

Reception

Box office
The film was one of the most successful of the Forbes regime at EMI Films. It was one of the most popular movies in 1971 at the British box office. By June 1972 it earned EMI a profit of £18,000.

Critical
A 1971 review by Roger Ebert was favourable: "The stories are told simply and directly and with a certain almost clumsy charm. Instead of going for perfection in the dancing, the Royal Ballet dancers have gone for characterizations instead. The various animals have their quirks and eccentricities, and they are fairly authentic: The frog dances like a frog, for example, and not like Nureyev." 

Anthony Nield wrote in 2011, "Tales of Beatrix Potter is one of British cinema's true one-offs, a film quite unlike any other. Ostensibly aimed at children, this adaptation of Potter’s various animal-centric stories was mounted by the Royal Ballet and choreographed by Sir Frederick Ashton. The tales are rendered as a series of dances, loosely interconnected by the author as a young girl (played by Érin Geraghty) and her active imagination. There are no words, only music and movement as the performers of the Royal Ballet—in full animal costume—interpret her stories' simple narratives."

Awards
The film's designer, Christine Edzard, was nominated for BAFTA awards for Best Art Direction and for Best Costume Design.

Legacy
John Braborne says Agatha Christie let him have the screen rights to Murder on the Orient Express because she liked Tales of Beatrix Potter.

The same team made a movie based on Hans Christian Anderson stories, Stories from a Flying Trunk (1979).

In 1992, Anthony Dowell, then Director of The Royal Ballet, produced a stage version of the film.

Home media
The film was released to DVD in 2004 and 2009. A digitally restored version was released as a Blu-ray DVD in 2011, in commemoration of the film's 40th anniversary.

References

External links
 
 

1971 films
Ballets created for The Royal Ballet
Beatrix Potter
British children's fantasy films
Films shot at EMI-Elstree Studios
Films based on children's books
Films without speech
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Peter Rabbit
Films about rabbits and hares
Films about owls
Films about squirrels
Films about mice and rats
Films about hedgehogs
Films about frogs
Films about ducks
Films about foxes
Films about pigs
EMI Films films
1970s English-language films
1970s British films
Films produced by Richard Goodwin (producer)