What mother would entrust her 10 year old child to a stranger like that?

There was something a bit off about the mother. But I believe that having him sleep in the same bed as her and not push sex was a sort of test to see if he was a good man. That there was a heart in his nihilism. Doesn't matter if he had no money and was going to Amsterdam because she knew he would do the right thing despite all that.

I KNOW, I thought it was very shocking too to just leave her child with a stranger, but that kind of trust is why I love this movie. Just to wish that more people in the world could be as reliable and caring as Philip.

I think you are applying your modern day sense of self and values to a film that was made in the early 70s.

The idea of a mother in the present day doing such a thing is very strange but it wasn't that strange back in the 70s. The mother in this film was a late 60s adolescent who is presented in the story as a young mother in the early 70s. It's not that different from my own mother. (I believe I was also Alice's age back in the early 70s.)

My own mother never married my father and we were very far removed from the "Leave it to Beaver" household of the 50's. My own "father figure" was not one person but the long line of lovers and boyfriends my mother had while I was a child. I went on many one on one trips and excursions with these man (and my own mother was not there to chaperone), and never once was pedophilia or anything sexual or anything out of the ordinary every happened.

I am not saying pedophilia or child exploitation didn't exist back in the 70s. (I am sure they did). But I think my point is, modern mass media might have altered peoples concepts of what "most" people are really like.

It is true that there do exist truly bad people in the world who can't tell right from wrong, but the fact of the matter is, most people are not truly bad people, and most people are good people and are fully capable of discerning between what is right and what is wrong and will veer towards the right thing to do, when the choice is presented to them.

I think what we have is, when I was a child, we only had three of four channels and the only news you ever got was the major world news at 6pm. Today, mass media and news outlets are in the 100s and its 24/7 and you get bombarded with all the bad news and all the really obscure news from various small pockets of the world that does not apply to your own real world. This news awareness might be painting a picture of reality in your own neck of the woods that doesn't actually exist. I an not sure if I make any sense. It's sort of like this, Imagine of you watched films about airline crashes all day long. It's entirely possible it could happen to you but the probability of it actually happening to you or anyone you personally know are quite remote. (Do you personally know anyone who has ever been in a plane crash?). Hope this rant makes some sense. :-)




Can this really be the end..to be stuck inside of mobile
with the Memphis blues again.