Figure 1.--'O'Shaughnessy's Boy' is a real tearjeaker as one might expect from a Jackie Cooper film. It is essentially a remake of box office success, 'The Champ' (1931), with a tiger added. |
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A quintet of O'Henry short stories. The best one is "Ransom of Red Chief". It is quite a well done piece about two bungling crooks and an impossible 10-year old. The boy wears old overalls and goes barefoot. I really liked his performance and he drives the crooks to distraction. In one scene he paddles one of the crooks. They finally pay the parents to take the boy back.
O'Rourke and his Indian (Cree) half brother Cajou are fur trappers. On the way back from a northern Canadian trapping trip they find a devestated wagon train. The only surivor is Grace. A Mountie commander who hates the Crees concludes it is a Cree attack. The Sioux from across the border in America are trying to involve the Cree into the fight with Whites and in particular the 7th Calvalry. O'Rourke has to disobey orders to save the men. He also is concerned about Grace. The film stars Alan Ladd. I don;t think his son David is in the film, but there is a great picture of David with his dad in Mountie uniforms.
'O'Shaughnessy's Boy' is a real tearjeaker. It is essentially a remake of box office success, "The Champ" (1931), with a tiger added. A circus animal trainer, Captain Michael "Windy" O'Shaughnessy, at the Hastings Bros. Circus spends his life looking for his infant son, Stubby, taken from him by his wife. Cpt. O'Shaughnessy prudish sister-in-law, Martha Sheilds, is looks down on Windy ans determined to break up the marriage. She convinces his wife Cora, a trapeze artist, that he is not fit to be her husband or Stubby's father. She convinces Cora ro steal Stubby away from his admittedly free-wheeling father and raise him in a more suitable environment. Windy is shocked to find his son is missing and his money is gone. He sets out looking for Stuby, but needs money to pay a private investigator. He decided to perform a dangerous fire trick with a tiger. He is highly skilled animal trainer, but he is so disdtubed anout losing Stuby that he can not focus. The tiger attacks him. He survives, but loses an arm. He quits the circus to search for his son. Failing to find Stuby, Windy becomes depressed and negins to asimlessly wander the streets. Years pass. Paricipating in a parade, the owner of the circus sees Windy. He tlls him that Cora had died in trapeze accident and that Stubby is being cared for in an orphan's school. Stubby who is no longer an infant has been thoroughly brainwashed by his aunt to hate his father. When Windy arrives at the orphanage to take his son for a 3-month visit, the boy starts crying and does not want to go with him. Windy showers his son with affection. Stubby acts coldly, however, and ids concincedd that he is responsible for his mother's death. Stubby tries to run off during a traiun trip. The train of course is how people traveled in the 1930s. Windy sets him down and tries to figure out why he is so disturbed. Windy leans about the lies his sister-in-law has told Stuby.
Windy manages to tell Stuby the truth and a real bond of affectin develop between the two. Windy finds work doing odd jobs at the circus. With only one arm, Hastings assumes that he can no longer do acts with dangerous animals. Meanewhile Martha is again trying to get Stuby taken away. Major Winslow, Stubby's school principal, supports Martha. He advises her that she is sure to succeed because Windy can no longer hold down a steady job. Windy pleads with Hastings to be allowed to do his old tiger act. Stubby helps Windy build up the confidence needed to do his act and he pulls it off.
Martha shoes up and orders Stubby to pack his bags and return home with her. Windy argues with Martha, but has to leave for his performance. When Stubby hears the roar of the crowd under the big top, he breaks away from Aunt Martha and rushes to make sure his father is safe. Windy sees Stubby and gains the the confidence need to accomplish the fire trick. Stubby proudly holds on to his father and refused to leave with Aunt Martha. The film included the work of two of the nost popular 1930s fil stars. Jackie Cooper played Stubby. Walace Berry played his father. Another child sactor was George "Spanky" McFarland from "Our Gang" fame.
Rather hokey World War II story about the covert operations of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). (The OSS was the preecssor of the CIA.) I've only seen the end which had extraordinarily amateurish special effects, a circling plan that could have been done better by a Cub Scout. There was interesting scene, a little French boy--I'd say about 12ish--appears wearing a smock, short pants, and knee socks. I don't know, however, how big his role was earlier. Bobby Driscoll is apparently in the film.
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" Obecná skola " or " Primary School " is a film made in Czecheslovakia and released in 1991. I do not know a great deal about the film. The setting is a small Czechoslovakian village just after World War II, around 1945-46. Here 10-year-old Eda (Vaclav Jakoubec) and his friend Tonda (Radoslav Budac) attend an elementary school. The class they are in is very boisterous and because of this, their teacher quits his job, only to be replaced by the much sterner Igor Hnidzo. The costuming appears to be realtively accurate. Hopefully our Czech readers will provide us more information about the film.
Dickie Moore appeared as a baby.
A boy about 14 is played by Gene Reynolds. He is the son of a strict preacher and is caught reading a popular magazine. His father won't allow it and punishes him.
Tom and Huck overhear a plot to bilk the townspeople, but one of the villains discovers them and gives chase. Patrick Creadon, Anthony Michael Hall.
A deranged brute escapes from a mental hospital to take revenge on his cruel school mates who sent him there 10 years ago.
A French simpleton named "Abel" becomes manservant of Field Marshall Goering during World War I at Goering's hunting estate, and, later, at a Hitler Youth school. "The Ogre" stars John Malkovitch and was directed by Volker Schlondorff. The Ogre is a joint British-French-German production), about a Frenchman during World War II. The German title is "Der Unhold". I believe the French title is something like "The Monster". The film open in a Paris suburb of 1925, at St. Christopher's School for Boys. The boys are shown as wearing brown smocks (over shirts and short pants), fastentened in back with three buttons. "The Ogre", which stars John Malkovich is an intense film. The last half or so of this film is set at a German Napola in World War II. The Napola, were NAZI party training schools. They were boarding establishments which were run like military schools.
Jorge Luque,
See "The Flying Carpet."
Classic Hemingway novel about an elderly Cuban fisherman played by Spencer Tracey and his prize catch, a giant marlin. An elderly Cuban fisherman suceeds in hauling in a huge fish, a masterful bit of fishing from his small boat. He had gone 84 days without catching a fish. He is seen as a has been in the village.
His only friend, a young boy (Felipe Pazos). He wants to out with the elderly fishermen, but his father will not let him. Cuba is well known as a sport fishing pardise, although stocks are now reduced because of overfishing. Before the sport fishery began, these fish clled billfish were also caught by artisanal fishermen from smallboats on the open ocean. Some of the fish, including the marlins and swordfish could be enormous. Felipe's father did not allow him to go out with the old man. The old man is, howeve, detrmined to catch a big fish. On the 85th day the old man manages to hook a giant marlin. He battles the marlin for three days and nights. It is a trial of mental courage and failing physical strength. He is determined to prove his worth as a man to himself and the village. Tracey was nominated for a best actor Oscar. It is surely one of Spencer Tracey's best performances, showing the range of his performances. The screenplay was notable for its effort to stay true to the Hemingway text. One film historian describes it as the "most literal, word-for-word rendition of a written story ever filmed". The book was adapted for Holluwood by Peter Viertel. It was directed by John Sturges. He apparently was not satisfied withbthe finished producr, calling it "technically the sloppiest picture I have ever made." Dimitri Tiomkin won the Academy Award for Best Original Score. A boy (Felipe Pazos) takes care of him at home. Felipe plays his part quite well, nut we know nothing about him. We do not know if he was in ny other films. It is probably the best known film about Cuba. One of the reasons that Hemingway is so revered in Cuba.
Unneeded remake. It simply undescores what a brilliant film the original was. The little Hispanic boy who idolized the old man again plays his part very well. The costuming shows how poor children dressed before the Revolution.
An unmarried woman in the mid-19th Century fears that the child she allowed her cousin to raise will never know the truth about their relationship.
A laundress rises to become the headmistress at an exclusive girls' school. Then the fun begins.
A Texas pioneer family in this Disnet film set in the 1860s adopts a mongrel dog who profoundly affects their lives and protects them from wilderness dangers.
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Lovely musical version of Oliver Twist. Staring a young Mark Lester who was superb in the role. The acting was first rate, but the costumes were disappointing. Jack Wild played Dodger. Sir Carol Reed produced "Oliver!", a musical version of the Dickens' classic. The book had been done several times before: Jackie Coogan played Oliver in 1922, Dickie Moore played the part touchingly in 1933, and John Howard Davis appeared in the 1948 production that featured Alec Guinness' marvelous interpretation of the sly Fagin. Sir Carol needed to find a child that could sing and dance as well as act. About 2,000 boys applied and 250 actually auditioned. Clayton recommended Mark to Sir Carol and he was offered the role soon after his audition. "Oliver!" emerged as one of the colossal productions of the 1960s. It was the version thay I have been most impressed with. I was impressed with Mark's lovely performance. Some believe that his performance was lost in the competition with the strong cast. One reviewer wrote "The focus of the movie is so wide, and the logistics of the production is so heavy, that Oliver himself, dutifully played by 9-year old Mark Lester, gets flattened out and almost lost, as if he had been run over by a studio bulldozer." I think, however, that Mark's performance was superb. He played a boy completely adrift, totally incapable of controlling his situation and swept along by events and the people he comes into contact with. The feeling of powerlessness and vulnerability were critical to the part and perfectly executed. In fact Mark had some fine moments: the singing of "Where is Love?". "Who Will Buy?", and "I'd Do Anything" with an almost angelic quality. I rather agree with a New York Times reviewer who wrote "Young Mark Lester as Oliver has a kind of golden innocence, untainted by self-conscious adorability of the typical child actor, and a marvelous pure boy soprano voice. He is shy, yet game and a perfect foil for Jack Wild's Artful Dogger." Gene Shalit noted "Mark is an ideal Oliver; angelic and sweet voice..." The film was a huge financial success, grossing over $16.8 million (an impressive amount in 1969) in the U.S. and Canada alone and won the 1969 Oscar as the Best Picture.
The haunting tale of a young boy's disappearance and his subsequent (and suspicious) reappearance. A teenage street prostitute turns up to tantalize the family with the idea that he might be the missing boy.
Adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel about an orphaned boy who escapes from the orphanage and is caught up in a gang of thieves in London. Jackie Coogan.
Beautifully done black and white version of the Dickens classic. Oliver (John Howard Davies) gives a wonderful performance in this realistic production. No shorts, but Oliver is done up in a sissy suit with a lace collar. Anthony Newly plays the artful Dodger. Alec Guiness plays Fagin and some of his scenes were cut out of the film for U.S. distribution because of charges of anti-semitic overtones. Quite a contrast to the saccharin depiction in the 1968 musical version familiar to most.
Well made version starring George C. Scott as Fagan. Oliver has long blond hair, but his costuming is terrible. When Oliver is taken unbecomingly by his grandfather, you would think he would be formalled. He wears a long pants suit with a big floppy bow. Richard Charles
A 14-year old recounts hilarious moments of his Midwestern family's not-so-perfect summer vacation. James B. Sikking
An elderly, but high-spirited lady running a junk yard helps two boys build a hot air balloon. The boys charmingly play their roles. There were, however, no interesting costumes in the parts I saw. Kevin McKenzie, Dennis Dimster.
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