Le Petit Soldat | The Little Soldier (Paul Grimault, 1947)

Hans Christian Andersen’s story of “The Steadfast Tin Soldier” has been animated many times but never as romantically as in this version. Director Paul Grimault and his screenwriter Jacques Prévert made several changes to the original Andersen tale. The soldier becomes an acrobat, the ballerina becomes a proactive and resourceful heroine, and a frozen-river climax is borrowed from the old D.W. Griffith silent classic Way Down East. In the background, Grimault and Prévert place a somber French landscape in ruins, bombed out and desolate.