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You can also slect the movies available on HBC by using this alphabetical movie listing. At this time only a few movies have film reviews in whicch we analize costumes in the film films for clothing information, but more review pages are being added all the time.
Tommy Rettig
Alfred Santell directed this romance road show. The screen play was written by Sy Bartlett. The major star was Fred MacMurray. It is another band film. The big bands were a major part of show business in the 1930s. The band here tries hard to arrange an audition for a job at a big time nightclub. Billy Lee plays Half Pint. Music was provided by The Yacht Club Boys and Harry Owens & His Royal Hawaiians.
Barrett Oliver
A kidnap victim desperately tries to turn his murderous captors against one another during a 700-mile drive to Houston. The boy is about 11 or 12 and plays his part beautifully. The boy wears jeans. Quite a well done suspense thriller, but quite violent.
A boy about 11 years old alone in the wilderness with his sister. Pat Peterson.
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An interesting German-language account of a carrer-oriented soldier from a working-class background who rises to a leadership position in the pre-World War I Austro-Hungarian Army. His working-class background is further complicated by Jewish-Catholic roots. Much of the film is set in Prague. The film opens at an Austrian military academy in the latter years of the 19th century. There are two uniforms worn by cadets: a dress outfit with silver buttons and a simpler everyday outfit.
After a sheriff retires, he is sought by a desperado who wants revenge. He does have a son who appears a good bit, but it is a terribly made movie. Contemprary clothing depicted.
The Fletcher family seeks their fortune in a gold mining camp.
An impassioned, pastoral indictment of the NAZIs as seen through the eyes of a 14-year old farm boy, Florya (Alexi Kravchenko). When his village is over run he tries to join the partisans. He is rejected as too young and returns home to find him family slaughtered in another village he witnesses the Germans herding the residents into a barn and incinerated. Kravchenko, who has never acted before, astutely plays the innocent destroyed.
An aspiring baseball pitcher who is cut from his minor league team becomes a playground supervisor for a group of street kids. Doug McKeon
After years in a boarding school, a wealthy teen is called home by his politically ambitious parents to become a part of his father's reelection campaign. Jon Cryer stars as Morgan. Contemprary clothing depicted.
A made for TV movie.
Another well-known French film with boys wearing school smocks is La Communale. It is based on a book written by Jean L'Hôte.
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The Warner Brothers film, "Confessions of a Nazi Spy", is a spy thriller. It is notable as the the first overtly anti-Nazi film produced by an important Hollywood studio. It was feleased before the NAZIs launched World War II in Europe. It is somewhat surprising looking back that movie studios in the Western democracies were so reluctant to take on the NAZIs. (American studios were somewhat more willing to take on the Japanese.) This reluctance in America was primarily the fear of losing the income from the European releases. Hollywood films made quite a bit of money from German and other European relases. The British reluctance was more a reflection of the Govern,ent's apeasement policy. The film stared Edward G. Robinson, Francis Lederer, George Sanders, and several German refuge actors. Notice that the film was set in America. A film set in Europe was seen as to provactive. The film had some factual basis. The plot was drawn from aticles written by former FBI agent Leon G. Turrou. He had been involved in investigating NAZI spy rings in the United States. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover fired him when he published articles without permission. Jack Warner was warned that the film would lead to the loss of markets in German and German-influenced countrie. Even so, he went ahead with the project. The film, however, proved to be a major worldwide box office hit. It received the 1939 National Board of Review award for Best Film. The film was as expected banned in Germany, Japan, and many Latin American countries. After America entered the War, scenes from "Confessions of a Nazi Spy" were spliced into "War Comes to America". This was the last of the "Why We Fight" film series. This was a series made to explain to American servicemen why America was fighting. The use of the scenes, testified to the impact of "Confessions".
Roddy McDowall has a bit part.
Award winning Bernardo Bertoluccifilm about a professor's recollection of how he tried to survive in Fascist Italy. It was an cclaimed film, but I found that the parts I saw moved rather slowly. It was basedon an Alberto Moravia novel. It was according to one reviewer about, "A weak-willed Italian man becomes a fascist flunky who goes abroad to arrange the assassination of his old teacher, now a political dissident." I think it is disengious to described those who conformed to Fascist or NAZI rule as weak willed. Both the Fascists and NAZis constructed a system in which only the very brave dared resist. And it was not just one's own personal safty that would be atisk, but the family, incluing one's wife amd chilren. nd in particularlt frave infactions, once relatives as well. And in both cojuntries there was not just a mater of confirming, but many ethusiastically supported the system. There was one scene at the beginning where the film flashes back to the protagonist's childhood. Hard to tell the year, but from the chuffered automobile which picks up the boy after school, I'd say it was the late 1920s or early 30s. A bunch of school kids are seen, all in period outfits, if I remember right almost all wearing shorts. The shorts are long and the boys are all very immaculately done up in various outfits--mostly suits. Some of the boys wear white knee socks. The protagonist has a stylish outfit: a very smart sailor suit blouse, rather long blue shorts, dark knee socks, and leather shoes. It is complete with a cap with a little pompon on top. He is about 13 years old. For some reason the other kids don't like him and pick on him.
This is a sort of gangster film, but with an African setting eather than Chicago or New York. It is set in the ficticious country of Congotanga. At the time European colonies were beginning to grant independence to African colonies, but most of the continent was still under European rule. Even so, the film depicts an African country with no extradition laws which sounds more like a Latin American country. The government is dominated by motely crew of international gangsters, headed by the notorious Carl Rittner. The latest plane from Europe arrives with beauriful Louise Whitman, fleeing an unjust French murder charge, Mannering, also on the plane, pays resident hit man O'Connell to kill her. The two and the hero of the story, David Carr, find themselves at Carr's jungle mission where he is surveying the Congotanga border. Africans are only bit players. One African boy makes friends with Whitman. The costuming seems pure Hollywood.
Junior Durkin starred as Huck.
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Nuns help Jewish children escape from a NAZI internment camp located near their convent. It us set in 1943. Quite a gripping story set in Italy. The children wear historically correct period clothing. They come from camps and are scruffily dressed. In one scene children are being bathed and consoled. One nun goes to bathe a boy about 10. He complains, "You are a girl, I know you are." She tries to tell him that she is a nun and that it is alright, but he still refuses. "I can't bathe you with your trousers on," she tells him. "Yes you can." he replies. Finally she bribes him with chocolate. The boy is hesitant but finally agrees. The Germans who are depicted as Wehrmact anbd nor SS ultimstely seize the convent as a transit camp. The German lieutenant and his sadistic colonel discover that the nuns had been taking in orphaned Jewish children and helping them evade arrest. The Germans order three of the nuns executed. The nuns help the children reach Palestine and safety. One assessment of the film reads, "The pathos of little children caught in the agony of war is always a solid staple of sentiment on the screen. It has been well and touchingly presented in any number of films. And it is offered again with deep compassion in 'Conspiracy of Hearts'. This assessment misses the mark historically. Jewish children were not 'caught in the agony of war'. Killing Jewish children was a ordinary German war goal. We are not sure if This is a feel-good story or has some historical basis, but does accurately illustrated the fact that many Catholic faithful and clerics helped save Jews during the War. The story first aired as an TV episode of 'Goodyear Playhouse' directed by Robert Mulligan (1956). There was a desite to make a film version, but the Rank organization which eventually produced it, initially flatly turned then down. Their view was, "It's religion, it's nuns, it's wartime, who wants to know?" The film was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Film Promoting International Understanding at the 18th Golden Globe Awards (1961).
An American girl is shocked that her British army officer husband is actually a communist. He has two nephews, small boys of bout 5 and 9, both of which wear shorts. The older boy dresses in a suit.
Roddy McDowall has a bit part.
A devoted teacher determines to develop a promising student from a poor Welsh mining community into an Oxford scholar. Set at the turn of the century. Ian Saynor I think plays the boy. Katherine Hepburn is the teacher.
This charming little romantic comedy is about a very proper English woman who during the Blitz marries a charming French pilot. They are separated by the War and even in the post-War period. When he finally returns, their son Sigismund played by (Martin Stephens) is 9 years old. He insists on going on the honneymoon. He first appears in a proper English grey short pants and then in some stylish French short pants outfits. One with a vest and the other with a tan coat. After they separate he wears a sweater and shorts with school sandals and a red blazer. He tells his grandfather he doesn'tlike being a French boy. He calls his new bike "a smasher". Back in France he wears a blue short pants sailor suit. The cap has a red pom, but curiously he wars it with a tie. He likes the idea of separation because of all the gifts, but then begins to change his mind.
A boy's reunion with his dog, Lassie, and a eagle's return to flight coincide with a rocket launch.
See "Allez France". Mark Lester
Mickey Rooney
Set at a boarding school.
Johnnie Crawford
An aging Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer had a small part.
A young boy (Ronnie Howard) uses a peculiar and humorous standard to determine the perfect wife for his widowed father. Ronnie who became best known for playing Opie on 'The Andie Grifith Show' was such a wonderful, intuitive little actor that he makes the movie worthwhile. He wears long pants which was fairly standard at the time, but even when he goes to camp which was not stahdard. A friend has a small role.
Not sure about the spelling. I understand this is quite a nice film about children.
Sort of an American version of the French film Cousin Cousine or however the French spell it. It got quite good reviews. Children do appear in it. Keith Coogan has a small part as one of the couples' son and I think he is a teenager. There are some wedding scenes. The kids flash by the screen quite a bit, but you see more of the girls. In the first wedding, one of the boys is in blue shorts, white shirt, and tie. At the very end, at a summer outside wedding, the twin boys seen briefly in short flashes throughout the movie are ring bearers. They are about 6 years old and wear Eton suits with white shorts and knee socks. You only see them from a distance coming down the isle. They are pictured in a clearer scene on the video label, but I didn't see that shot in the film.
John Wayne hires about 10 boys about 11-14 years old to run his cattle. Several of the boys are quite sweet. There are no notable costumes, all the boys wear rough cowboy outfits. Stephen Hudis, Clay O'Brian.
After a boy's mother dies he struggles to keep up the ranch while his father becomes disheartened and turns to alcohol.
Uninteresting mobster-type movie. One brief scene shot in Italy shows school kids in smocks, although it isn't clear if they are wearing shorts or longs.
An exploration of the imperfect reform system that allows delinquent youths to be jailed in adult prisons.
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Another reformatory film starred Humphrey Bogart in a role very much like Jimmy
Cagney's in Mayor. The boys were played by members of the Dead End Kids. I remember Bobby Jordan played one of the inmates. He was issued a uniform with trousers too big
for him in the waist; they kept falling down to his ankles if he didn't hold his pants up. In one scene during morning roll call on the assembly grounds of the reform school, the warden (played by a rather stout actor) notices Bobby's trousers sinking to the
shoes during calisthenics. The warden summons him, front and center, and demands to know what the big idea is. Bobby expalins that his trousers are too big in the waist, and the warden's solution is to send him to the cook to be fattened until the trousers fit!
Fortunately for Bobby, Humphrey Bogart is listening to all this, and tells the warden to "make the pants fit the boy, not the boy fit the pants."
The relationship between a single mother and her developing 12-year old boy, Chris. He sometimes wears cut off jeans.
A none too appealing Lucille Ball and Bob Hope film was produced in 1963, Critic's Choice. Rickey Kellman plays their son. Hope is a hard drinking New York theater critic for a newspaper. He's abusive and insensitive to Ricky, who seems like a very nice,
normal kid in the film. Rickey appeared on many TV shows, including the Dennis O'Keefe Show 1959-60).
Little furry aliens with razor-sharp teeth terrorize a Kansas farm town. Nothing of special interest. Contemporary clothing is woen. Scott Grimes does a nice job with his part.
Child actor Slavko Stimac played in the gritty World War II movie, "Cross of Iron". Yugoslavian born Slavko was billed as Mikael Slavko Stimac to sound more Russian as the film is set on the Eastern Front. One report said that this as a Russian movie, but this does not appear to be the case. Our reader probably meant tht the film was set in Russia. Rather it appers to be an international production, especially British and German. It was produced in 1977 and directed by Sam Peckinpah and featured some very distinguished actors, British, American, and German, including James Coburn, Maximilien Schell, James Mason, and David Warner. The child actor, Slavo Stimac, who plays the part of Michail, is uncredited in the cast list. The film is a very realistic anti-war film that shows the horrors of war with no winners on any political or ethnic side. This of course is not the nature of Soviet films aied at the domestic market. The plot concerns Rolf Steiner (played by James Coburn), a war-hardened veteran of the German World War II Whermacht. He leads his men through every battle and danger with a genuine concern for their survival during the madness of the German advance on the Russian front. Then a Prussian officer (Maximilian Schell), who has volunteered to leave the battle-free zone of occupied France, joins the fighting group with only one object in mind--to earn the Iron Cross for bravery at any cost and thus continue his family's tradition of honor in battle. He is trying to avoid the disgrace of emerging from the war as a soldier who has not experienced the greatest extreme of danger.
Rather slow moving film in which Martin about 13 or so (Sylvain Copans) is acting strange at school. It seems his mother has died, but he is afraid to tell the authorities out of fear of being sent to an orphanage. His friends are impossibly sweet and supportive and band together to keep his secret.
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Reasonable version of Mark Twain's "The Prince and the Pauper." Mark Lester played both parts. His acting career fizzled out not long afterwards and he now works as a chiropodist! The versions after the 1937 Mauch twin production used film or video trickery to create the illusion of two identical boys. Modern technology makes it unneccessary to find twin boys of the right age, look and acting competence. Henry VIII is played by Charlton Heston.
Remake for TV of a World War II film ("The Pied Piper") about an eccentric Englishmen who hates children, but winds up shepherding an ever growing group of children through occupied France. The Englishmen in the remake is Peter O'Toole. They start out with two girls and a boy. The English boy wears proper grey shorts, knee socks, and sandals. They pick up only boys as they move along. All wear shorts, but long baggy ones. They omit the bit in the original where the English boy puts on a smock so he looks like a French boy.
A troubled young boy becomes obsessed with the mother who shuns him.
A plan crash leaves a youngster alone in the wilds of Canada.
Richard Attenborough's anti-Apartheid film is quite a moving movie. It deals with the relationship between a anti-Apartheid journalist and a black leader. Besides being an important film there are depictions of South African boys clothes as several boys have small roles.
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