Movie Review: ****The Snowman (1982)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCEvL_hdN2A
You Tube Movie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubeVUnGQOIk
Song "Walking in the Air"

This is a movie based on a children's classic picture book; meaning no words.  That's the kind of book I like to read, and though the pictures are a bit familiar, I seem to have missed this one.  This is a British production directed by Dianne Jackson and the book by Raymond Briggs.  Briggs makes a snowman when he was a boy, and then the snowman comes to life at midnight.  The snowman has mishaps in the home, while not waking Briggs' parents.  He wants to try things out, like hot water, and roller skates, and powders and things.  Eventually they get outside to try a motor bike, and have a good time, although this warms the snowman's legs.  Then something magical happens.  The snowman takes the boy by the hand and they begin to fly.  The only talking in the movie, other than the introduction, is the song "Walking in the Air":
We're walking in the air
We're floating in the moonlit sky
The people far below are sleeping as we fly

I'm holding very tight
I'm riding in the midnight blue
I'm finding I can fly so high above with you

Far across the world
The villages go by like dreams
The rivers and the hills
The forests and the streams

Children gaze open mouth
Taken by surprise
Nobody down below believes their eyes

We're surfing in the air
We're swimming in the frozen sky
We're drifting over icy
Mountain floating by

Suddenly swooping low on an ocean deep
Arousing of a mighty monster from its sleep

We're walking in the air
We're floating in the midnight sky
And everyone who sees us greets us as we fly

The Snowman takes him to a snowman ball at the North Pole, where our boy meets  Santa Claus.  He is given a scarf with a snowmen print.  They then return, but the next day with warmer weather, the snowman is melted; but the scarf remains.
It is amazing what can be told through pictures, and music.  This show is very beautiful and relaxing.
My only complaint are the penguins at the North Pole, then again it is a fantasy.