Imagine that, a movie that was released a year before I was born...
One of the best animated movies that always pop in my mind... I'm trying to find a dvd copy of this movie to share the experience to my sisters and friends...


The Last Unicorn is a 1982 fantasy film, based on the novel written by Peter S. Beagle, and adapted by him for the screenplay. The film is an animated movie produced by Rankin/Bass for ITC Entertainment and animated by Topcraft.

In an enchanted forest, a unicorn (Mia Farrow) realizes

that she is the last of her kind and decides she must embark on a quest to learn what has become of the other unicorns. The Unicorn discovers from the addled dialogue of a butterfly (Robert Klein) that something known as the Red Bull has herded all of her kind to the ends of the earth. Venturing into unfamiliar territory beyond the safety of her forest home, she begins a journey to find them and bring them back.

Along the way she is captured for a time by the witch

Mommy Fortuna (Angela Lansbury), and is put on display in the cages of the witch's Midnight Carnival. She escapes with the help of an incompetent magician in Fortuna's employ, Schmendrick (Alan Arkin), and later gains a second traveling companion, Molly Grue (Tammy Grimes), the care-worn lover of Captain Cully (Keenan Wynn) of Greenwood Forest, after the latter nearly kills Schmendrick and ties him to a tree until the Unicorn returns to save him.

When the Unicorn nears the seaside castle of King Haggard (Christopher Lee), supposed keeper of the Red Bull, she comes face to face with the Bull and learns she cannot defeat him. At the last moment before her final surrender and capture, Schmendrick's unpredictable magic transforms her into a mortal woman. In this human guise, the Red Bull is uninterested in her and departs.

Schmendrick, Molly Grue, and the Unicorn (now in human form) proceed to Haggard's castle and seek entry. King Haggard is at first unwelcoming, and Schmendrick introduces the Unicorn only as Lady Amalthea. Schmendrick requests that the three of them stay there as members of Haggard's court, only to be told that all of the royal complement has long since been dispatched: the only remaining occupants in the castle are Haggard, his adopted son Prince Lir (Jeff Bridges), and four ancient men-at-arms. Haggard consents to lodging the trio, replacing his more competent on-call wizard with Schmendrick, and setting Molly Grue to work in his scullery.

Becoming gradually forgetful of her original identity and the purpose of her quest, Amalthea feels more human with each passing day, and eventually falls in love with Prince Lir. Caught in a complex web of newfound emotions, she struggles with thoughts of abandoning her quest for the sake of mortal love even as she continues to seek an answer to the fate of the missing unicorns. Haggard confronts Amalthea in private conversation, hinting at the location of the unicorns, yet from the waning magic in the woman's eyes, he has doubts regarding his previous suspicions that she is more than she seems.

Solving a riddle to find secret passage through a broken clock in the castle basement, Schmendrick, Molly, Lir, and Amalthea confront the Red Bull in his lair. The fiery creature is no longer deceived by the woman's false human form and chases after her. In an attempt to assist her escape, Schmendrick reverses the transformation

spell, turning Amalthea back into the Unicorn, but she is unwilling to leave Lir's side. The Bull drives her toward the ocean, just as he earlier drove all the other unicorns, but Lir comes between them and is killed. Grieving, the Unicorn agressively turns on the Bull and forces him into the sea. Carried on the white surf of incoming tides, the other unicorns emerge en masse from the water, causing Haggard's castle to collapse into the sea as they rush past, with Haggard falling to his death from the crumbling castle parapet. On the beach, the Unicorn magically restores Lir to life before she, too, departs for her forest.

Schmendrick assures Lir, now the king, that he has gained much by winning the love of a unicorn, even if he is now alone. The Unicorn briefly returns to say goodbye to Schmendrick, who laments that he has done her wrong by burdening her

with regret and the taint of mortality, but she thanks him nonetheless for having helped to restore unicorns to the world, and though she is the only unicorn to feel regret, she is also the only unicorn to know love.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Unicorn_%28film%29