Many years ago Hans Christian Anderson wrote a fairy tale about a Chinese Emperor and his golden-voiced nightingale. Jiri Trnka has taken the classic folk story and transformed it into a charming, sophisticated screen production. To compare this Czechoslovakian movie with any other would be impossible, for here is not only a fine picture, but a completely new art form in the theatre.

Trnka, an artist and sculptor in his own right, has used but two live actors. All the other parts are played by cleverly carved wooden figurines. Using animated cartoon technique, Trnka filmed each frame of the movie separately-taking as many as twenty shots for a simple movement of an arm. The production is in Nu-Agfa color, which lends a soft, warm tone to the action.

"The Emperor's Nightingale" tells the story of a poor little rich boy, shut off from the world outside his home and imprisoned in a room filled with amazing toys. Dreaming of the far off woods, he suddenly see his playthings come to life and enact the Anderson story.

Other than Vaclav Trojan's excellent background music, the original production had no sound track, but Boris Karloff's dubbed-in narration helps to supplement and to speed up the action in the few spots that the film drags. Unfortunately, the lines sometimes draw attention away from the intricate, beautiful movements of the puppet actors.

Although there have been other artistic motion pictures, Trnka's work does very well without the lavish surrealism of predecessors like "The Red Shoes" and "Tales of Hoffman." And its delicacy and restraint can not help but charm an audience.

Because of its nature, "The Emperor's Nightingale" is not a movie with mass appeal, nor has it any moral significance--except perhaps as a satire on useless routine. Nevertheless, this is a brilliant and truly creative picture, and I left the theatre feeling quite happy and relaxed.