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You can also select the movies available on HBC by using this alphabetical movie listing. We are adding information about childten in the movies all the time. At this time only a few movies have been analized by HBC for clothing information, but more pages are being added all the time. We incourage readers to add insights about their favorite films.
A Russian reader tells us about a late-Soviet movie, I Am a Pioneer Leader" (Ya Vozhatyj Forposta). I was made in 1986. The movie is based on the novel of Nikolay Ognev Kostya Ryabtsev's Diary. The book is set in the early-1920s just after the Russian Revolyution and Civil War. Yyoung (16 or maybe 17 years old) Komsomol member Kostya becomes a leader of one of the first Young Pioneer groups. The costuming in the movie is very accurate.
Suggested by a HBC reader, but I know nothing about it.
This adaptation of John van Druten's play was based British writer Christopher Isherwood's Berlin Stories. It caused a minor flutter in 1955 when it was condemned by the Legion of Decency. In modern terms it's fairly tame stuff. It stars Laurence Harvey, Shelley Winters, and Patrick McGoohan costar. In chronicles Isherwood's experiences in decadent pre-NAZI Berlin. The experiences of a struggling writer and his wild lady friends contrass with the brutal rise of the NAZIs occuring at the same time. One reviwer not very impressed with the film suggest a brief reciew, "Me no Leica". This was the basis for the wildly successful musical Cabaret.
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Here are several screenshots from the Soviet musical movie "I'm in love with you, life!" (1967). I didn't know that the Soviets made many musicals, but a Russian reader tells me that they did, both before and after Stalin. We do not know much about the film, as far as I can tell there is no internet listing for the film, at least in English. The plot is made up around a granddad and a grandson walking streets of Moscow. The boy look to be about 7-8 years old. We do not know who played the boy, but the Soviets took a different view as to children in films. There were no child stars as in Hollywood fims. Rather new children were recruited for each film. We are not sure just why they did this, but the experience would not have been as disruptive on the children's lives. Some American children managed to whether stardom. For others it ruined their lives. Grandfather tells the boys all his stories and experiences about the various city land marks. Notice the boy wears a short pants suit with a beret, white shirt, black bow-tie and long stockings. Notice how long the stockings are. This would have been standard contemporary clothing in Moscow at the time for a boy this age. In a couple years, tights would very quickly replace long stockings. We get the impression that children im many Soviet films wore their own clothes istead of costumes. But we do not know about this particular film.
Boys at an all boys school play both male and female parts in a school play. The protagonist is cast as a girl in H.M.S. Pinafore. He and several other boys appear in old-fashioned dresses.
This Kim Basinger movie is a true story of Kuki Gallmann, an Italian socialite. Kuki
nearly dies in a traffic accident. She decides to do more with the life she almost lost. Kuki and new husband Paolo (Vincent Perez) move to Kenya. Her father had told her stories about Africa as a child. She learns to overcome her fears. They struggle to build a ranch and protect wildlife. In the effort she loses her husband. Her son Emanuele is about 8 years old when the film begins. He is played by Liam Aiken (1990- ) who has played in 'Road to Perdition' and several other films. He does quite a nice job in this film. The film begins in Italy where he attends an Italian school. All the children are wearing smocks. There are a couple scenes in the school with the children. Emmie, like his mother, falls in love with Africa. He has a mop hair cut and wears various kinds of short pants including jean shorts. He makes a black friend, but the film does not persue this line. He is sent to an English boarding school. There are scenes in the dorm, assembly hall, and a cricket game. The younger boys wears grey short pants suits and kneesocks with color bands. The second part of the film has him as an older teenager. The film is shot in Venice, Italy and South Africa, although it is set in Kenya. Kuki Gallmann's son Emanuele in actuality was a student at Hillcrest Secondary School Nairobi. This is a day school but at the time it had a small boarding facility. In the film Emanuele developed a love of snakes. He had a large collection of them. Most are harmless but he has a very dangerous poisonus snake. In the course of caring for it he is bitten several times and eventually dies from its bite. Kenyans criticized this film because it was not shot in Kenya, even thoughit is about Kenya.
The true story of a 7-year old boy who was kidnapped and survived 7 years of captivity before being reunited with his family in 1979. A very effective production and moving story. The film covers Stephen's ordeal and the difficulty he has adjusting when he returns home.
Mickey Rooney
A homeless father and son who have nothing but themselves fight desperately to remain together.
A few interesting scenes at the very beginning showing the main character as a younger and then older boy with contemprary costuming. The movie itself is ebtirely forgetable.
Julia Roberts startles a group of Boys Scouts.
"I Love You Again" was a Boy Scout-themed Willim Powell comedy vehicle. A confidence man in an out of amnesia becomes involved with a Boy Scout troop. He is a fuddy duddy, stingy businessman that apparently is more appealing as a crook. He becomes interested in first his former self's bank accountv anf than his wife.
William Powell is teamed with Myrba Loy who played in the Thin Man movies. They were better than this film, but any movie with the pair is worth seeing. I think they were called Boy Rangers rathan than Scouts. The uniform badges were not BSA types. I'm not sure why they didn't use the Scout name. Perhaps the BSA didn't like the plot. The boys wear a short pants uniform even though the uniform at the time worn by most boys was knickers. (Shorts were worn at camps.) I've only seen part of the film, but the boys I've seen when not in their Scout uniforms wore long pants. One of the Scouts was played by Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, better know for his work in the "Our Gang" series. Another was Mickey Gubitosi on his way to becoming Robert Blake. The New York Times remembers them as surly. I don't recall them in that way. I understand that a remake is planned for 2008.
This film is also known as "The Man I Married". It is based on a short story by Oscar Schisgall. The film mixed in period 1938 newsreel footage into the film. This was the year the NAZIS annexed Austrua and forced the British and French to abandon Czechoslovakia at Munich. Carol Hoffman (Joan Bennett) is an American woman married to Eric Hohhman (Francis Lederer), an American of German ancestry. They married in America and Carol does not learn the truth about her husband unytil the family travels to Germany to visit with Eric's family. She is horrified about what she sees in Germany. Her husband is mesmerized and emerges as a devoted NAZI. She tries to get their son Ricky (Johnny Russell) back home to America. The film was made after the NAZIs had conquered much of Europe, but before America had entered the War. Darryl Zanuck
at 20th Century-Fox decided to shoot a series of movies to inform Americans as to what was happening in Europe. The film includes the stock characters such as storm troopers, Gestapo, Hitler Youth boys. While the American people was staunchly isolationist, Hollywood in the late 1930s began to make anti-Japanese and anti-NAZI films in the late-1930s. This film is a good example. By 1940, American public opinion had begun to change as a result of the fall of France and the London Blitz. Still Americans opposed entering the European War. Because of Hollywoods internationlist orientation, isolationist Senator Senator Gerald Nye (Republican, North Dakota) launched a Senate investigation.
A gullible Australian boy is led to believe he owns a racetrack. Gully Coote, Tony Barry
A writer looks back at her immigrant family in the early 20th century. The boy of the family is an older teenager. This was made into a lovely little TV series during the early years of American television.
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I know virtually nothing about this film. I do know that it is set in England and that Roddy McDowell has a bit part. He wears a school uniform. This was a George Formby film. George Formby sings a few songs, Roddy Mcdowall is a cheeky little monkey on a railway train. Formby falls in love and criminals get caught. That's about all there is. The ending has a Union flag fluttering to show that it is a British
made film.
Five adolescents in a small Italian resort town have varying degrees of success in coping with the problems of growing up.
The 1970 film 'I Walk the Line' was directed by John Frankenheimer and starred Gregory Peck and Tuesday Weld. The plot is about staid, rural Tennessee Sheriff Henry Tawes (played by Peck). Tawes is a figure of unquestioned moral fibre. He has aeputation for judging ohers. He follows the law to he letter without question. Tawes develops an infatution with the young town girl Alma McCain (played by Weld). The film is an adaptation of Madison Jones's novel, 'An Exile'. The title comes from the Jonny Cash classic, 'I Walk the Line' which featured prominently in the soundtrack. Peck was poorly cast as the sheriff. Weld was right on as the sultry young temptress. Frankenheimer wanted Gene Hackman to ply the shreiff who would have been a better choice. The studio wanted, hoever, to cut corners and chose Peck who was under contract. Tawes convinces Tawes to protect her moonshiner father. Alma's little brother is Buddy (Freddie McCloud). The Cash song is great, but the film does not do it justice.
Duke Cooper
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Surrealistic drama set in an oppressive British boy's public school. A lot of the junior boys are depicted, focusing on their efforts to teach a new boy all the correct responses and school lingo and their experiences as fags. The school has a long trouser uniform. This was Malcomb McDowell's first film. Has a surrealistic end when the boys rebel and take over the school. Pity it has such a ridiculous ending as some of the various scenes are quite well done--although rather outdated by the late 1960s. A British reader reports, "The reason the film cuts from colour to black and white was lack of finances for colour film. The PE uniform is worn in the fencing scene, involving McDowell, with Bobby Fisher looking down from the gallery. The school, like so many has its own Army Training Corps (ATC) and the uniform is typical of the time. David Wood.
Darryl Hickman has a bit part.
Rather maudlin romance set in Scotland, however, film critics would probably like it. There is one extremely brief scene of interest. In the middle of the film at a kahli, two boys are mixed in with the group. One is in longs, the other is wearing a short pants suit. You have to be quick to spot him. The shorts are long and his knee socks are pulled up, but he is scene twice, both times in the background leaning up against the wall. He is an older boy, I'd say 15 or 16.
The film, "Stolen Children" is about two children from a Milan slum and a soldier sent to escort them to a new foster home. The children, 11 year-old Rosetta and 9-year old Luciano (Giuseppe Ieracitano), have been taken away from their mother because she was trying to prostitute her daughter. Nothing goes right on the trip. The nuns at the home refuse to accept Rosetta. The boys gets sick. At first the soldier wants to get rid of them as soon as possible. After a while he gets attached to them and decides to show them a bit of life.
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