what's this movie about?
is it any good and what is it about?
shareIt's about a young English boy who is living in Port Said in North Africa at the start of the film when it suddenly becomes a war zone and his parents are killed in a bomb blast. Amid the confusion Sammy runs away, and decides that the sensible thing to do is to aim for his only known relative, an aunt, whom he knows lives in Durban. Problem is, Durban is at the other end of Africa, at it's southern tip, so Sammy begins an epic journey down through an entire continent.
Sammy isn't a particularly nice kid, but this makes his odyssey all the more convincing, because he'd have to be a tough little bugger to make it through. He has various adventures, first hooking up with an Arab merchant who ends up getting killed (I think, it's a long time since I saw it), mainly because of Sammy. Then an American lady tourist tries to 'adopt' him in lower Egypt, but he's having none of her pitying fawning over him, and he runs away. He prefers to travel with the Africans, avoiding the white people he meets, although he stands out a mile being very blond, tho quickly extremely dirty. He eventually hooks up with a big game hunter, played by Edward G Robinson (famous tough guy actor from the 30s and 40s), who is also involved in some dodgy diamond dealing. He recognises something in the tough little kid that reminds him of himself. At one point Sammy manages to save his life by shooting a leopard that was about to pounce.
Eventually Edward G is captured by the police, Sammy escapes - I think with a pocket full of diamonds. Half a continent has been trying to track Sammy down - the journey takes several months. But Edward G persuades the police not to pick Sammy up, recognising that the journey is a necessary rite of passage that the boy needs to take in order to deal with the trauma of his parents' death in Port Said etc.
This isn't a big or famous film, although the director Alexander Mackendrick had a very high reputation in his time. He made a couple of films that centred around kids who often unwittingly caused death or destruction in their wake. The kids were never cute or sentimental. But the performance of the kid who played Sammy, Fergus McClelland keeps you fascinated. The relationship between this boy, and seasoned old timer Robinson works very well on screen. I've often wished someone would remake it, to give the tale a higher profile.
wow it sounds really. good thank you for posting that!
shareSome additional comments:
1) The film follows the book fairly closely. I think W.H. Canaway did the screen adaptation.
2) Except at the beginning there is practically no relationship between Sammy and other children. His encounters are almost all with adults, most of whom try to exploit him in one way or another.
3) At the beguinning, he is not marely an orphan, but an enemy alien. He is British, and though his parents were killed in the bombing, he is identified with the enemy in the eyes of many of the Egyptians, especially the children.
4) The theme of losing a home is repeated. When he finds a home with the diamond smuggler, that too is destroyed in a police raid.
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I had trouble believing this when I first saw it. But you've got Mexican and Central American kids even younger than Sammy showing up in the US looking to find their parents, after they've traveled thousands of miles all by themselves, sometimes through several countries. You've got Sudanese refugee kids walking thousands of miles through countryside infested with dangerous wild animals after they lost their homes and their families.
That's good. Go on. Read some more. —Warren G. Harding
Ummm. I can think of a few directions you might be going with this. I'm curious about yours.
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