family viewing

It's very appropriate. It's mainly about the children, and I feel children under 10 can easily identify with these children and their lives apart from adults.

I saw this film when it came out - I'm not sure exactly when that was in the UK, but I was 10 in 1962, so I can't have been much older than that. I still have a vivid memory of it, and I don't think I've seen it since (not all the way through, anyway.) I recall that I was totally gripped and enthralled, though I suspect I might have been a little upset by the ending. I remember that I was clearly sophisticated enough to register that when Alan Bates is arrested at the end and holds his arms out to be searched he momentarily resembles an image of the crucifixion, so I think I must have been old enough to appreciate it.

I also remember that my mother checked with our priest before taking me, in case it was blasphemous - a fact that confirms I was brought up in a sufficiently Christian environment to get the references: a child raised with a different religion or none might not, I suppose. The only things that puzzled me about it were some of the specifically Northern references and expressions, which were then unfamiliar to my London-bred ears.

Very young children might be bored or upset, but it is certainly family viewing.

Depends on the child. I must've been about 8 when I saw it and still remember it some 50 years later. What upset me was that the guy was a murderer who was obviously lying to the children. Jesus as a murderer? Some allegory!