I really like this movie. My only problem with it is that the boy whom George's daughter befriends looks like he is 15 years old, but the little girl tells her daddy that he is 11 going on 12! When I first saw the teenage boy ask the girl to ride the horse with him I was thinking: George would not want his daughter to be riding into a miner's cabin with a teenager! It is hard to have suspension of disbelief here! Couldn't they find an age appropriate actor????
shareI kinda thought the whole thing was getting a little creepy there myself.
shareBack in the mid 80s when this film was made most folks didn't think the same way about such things as they do now,many high profile crimes and news story upon news story, about things of a sexual nature has changed the mind set of many folks now days,very sad!...WE HAVE BEEN CONDITIONED TO THINK NASTY BAD THOUGHTS ON THINGS THAT MANY TIMES ARE ENTIRELY INNOCENT!
shareOh come on... When I was a kid in the fifties, that wouldn't even be going on. A boy that big, with a little girl? Nope. Even though The "nasty bad thoughts" weren't advertised in movies or TV like they are now, the kids are pretty much the same. We were not allowed to play with the "big kids", and girl-boy stuff hasn't changed all that much. I remember playing doctor. It's the same now, only with better instruments. And a cam-corder.
I agree with the others.... This was the only thing that creeped me. This is still my very favorite Christmas film.
NO you come on,kids now days pretty much like kids back in the 1950s????Todays world society is way more down trodden then back 50 + years ago,or even 20 years for that matter,too many examples to even start to list here....Get a clue!
shareSome kids were bad, wild, "over-sexed" 20 years ago, too, just nobody talked about it as much. I think technology has allowed those types of kids to be even worse. They can now share it with others and be more open and free about it. I think if kids in the 60s had been able to use the internet, they'd have done a lot of the same things as today. It just wasn't available to them.
Anything I could have said I felt somehow that you already knew
I know this is way after the fact, but I only just read this post... I agree, Scruff did look a whole lot older than 11 going on 12... the actor himself was 14 at the time, but he still looked even older than that to me... the funny thing is I couldn't find any other information on him except his DOB... this seems to have been the only film he was ever in... I'm wondering if perhaps he was related to someone involved in making this movie and that's how he got the part of Scruff... knowing what his age was supposed to be, I didn't find him and Alex hanging out together creepy at all... but I did have to continually remind myself that he was only "11"... having said all that, I also wonder what happened to Gennie James (Alex)... I saw her in 'The Secret Garden' made in 1987, and another film which I can't remember right now (turns out it was 'Places in the Heart'... I looked it up), and found her to be a very fetching actress... quite likeable and good, but she has no other credits after 1988 (and, indeed, seems to have only been active from 1984 to 1988).
... the hardest thing in this world is to live in it...
I thought the boy who played Scruff was very good and believable and I never thought anything about the age difference until now. He definitely looked 14 or 15. It's too bad he never acted again. Maybe he was, as you say, a friend of someone's or a local they discovered who could ride well.
My only problem was his name seemed a bit silly. Scruff? Maybe Jake would have been better.
I thought Jane K. was excellent. She was so sweet and feminine - so different from her role on "Malcolm in the Middle." She's a good actress!
i kinda thought scruff was a nickname
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Do everything in Love. I Corinthians 16:14 NIV
Funny, I've watched this movie maybe 20 times over the past 10 years and NOT ONCE until reading this post today did I even consider the boy might have ulterior motives in taking Alex to his hideout. I guess in 2010 we have to look for dirt everywhere, huh?
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I watched the movie multiple times again this Christmas season, and I still see nothing wrong with the older boy taking Alex to his hideout.
shareEven thinking he wasn't a predator, I kept wondering why a teenage boy wanted to hang out with a little girl who still believed in Santa. This was before I knew the age his character is supposed to be. I thought he was about 15. I kept wondering if he was so lonely and had no friends, did he latch on to this girl as a little sister type? That was the only way it made sense to me until I looked up what age he was supposed to be.
Anything I could have said I felt somehow that you already knew
I like this movie, but I also thought it was weird that this teenage boy would be interested in hanging out with a little girl who still believed in santa. When she told him that, and he looked at her like why do you believe in him, it just seemed odd. I try to watch it from a kid's point of view, but as an adult, it just doesn't make sense. Even if he has no bad intentions toward her, still wonder why would he be interested in talking to her and showing her his secret hang-out place. I agree that an actor looking more like 11 years old would've made more sense. Even the part at the dance, when he was standing in the doorway, I couldn't figure out if he was a kid or a young adult! He was taller and older looking than all the other kids. This was before I knew more about the character.
The actor was good in the part, but was definitely an odd casting choice.
Anything I could have said I felt somehow that you already knew
Can't believe this discussion is still going on...Again the relationship only seems odd because of today's society outlook on such things!...Sad state that anything that might be purely and completely innocent is at first glance looked on as something odd or dirty!...Just a sad reflection of how much of society has been programmed over these last many years!
shareI did kind of wish that either Alex was a little older, or Scruff was a little younger, and could have had alittle romance of their own.
shareI liked the kid and the character, but yes, even regardless of all the 'changing society' stuff, there's just no way he could pass for an 11-year-old or even a 15-year-old. He looked at least 16 to me. I guess a real 11/12-year-old couldn't master the huge horse the filmmakers wanted to use!
The mirror... it's broken.
Yes, I know. I like it that way. Makes me look the way I feel.