Edward Lewis optioned the film rights to The Blue Bird in 1968 and worked with Tower International to try to secure a co-production with the Soviet Union through a cultural exchange program in the United Kingdom.
At times, both work and living conditions bordered on the primitive, and the non-Russian cast found it difficult to cope with the severe weather and mostly inedible food.
James Coco, originally cast as Tylo, could digest only bread and butter and eventually suffered a gall bladder attack that necessitated his being replaced, and Elizabeth Taylor dealt with amoebic dysentery throughout filming.
After viewing her appearance in the first week's dailies, Taylor flew to London and demanded that the director of cinematography Jonas Gricius, a Soviet Lithuanian cinematographer who was inexperienced in shooting with color film, be replaced.
[4] Communication between the English and Russian-speaking crews was nearly impossible, and George Cukor frequently resorted to sign language in a feeble effort to make himself understood.
[6] When these issues caused the production to be delayed by a month, 20th Century Fox replaced Lewis with Paul Maslansky, who had experiences filming in the Soviet Union from The Red Tent and spoke Russian, as producer.
It can still work sometimes if it's put on a large patch of ice, but the romantic notions that motivate The Blue Bird are enough to send most American children, to say nothing of the ancients who may accompany them to the film, into antisocial states beginning with catatonia and ending in armed rebellion...Mr. Cukor...seems to have had less chance to direct in this case than to act as the goodwill ambassador who got his actors on and off the sets on time...None of the English-speaking actors can do much but behave as if he was in a very unlikely pageant...The Soviet cast members, who speak in badly dubbed English, are no better except when they are given a chance to dance.
"[9] Time Out New York called the film "a desperately pedestrian, hideously glitzy version of Maeterlinck's delicate fantasy" and added, "You'd never believe in a month of Sundays that Cukor directed it.