You can also slect the movies available on HBC by using this alphabetical movie listing. At this time only a few movies have been analized by HBC for clothing information, but more pages are being added all the time. We encourage reader to submit material about their favorite films.
Billy Chapin.
See Me.
British intelligence asks an American businessman to assassinate a defector vacationing in Germany with his son, Patrick (Michael Newport). The boy appeared at first in glassesand has an English accent, I assume the plot has him on vacation from an English boarding school. Perhaps his mother is English and the divorced. I'm not sure about his clothes, but he does wear a gray blazer with a school badge. He is held hostage to force the businessman to kill the defector. I sat through the whole moving hoping to catch a glimpse of the boy at the end of the movie to better describe his clothes, but the reunion was not depicted.
Bette Davis plays a deranged nanny to an affluent family. She accidentally kills her young charge in a bath tub and blames it on the little girls older brother. He is sent off to school. His parnts retain her because she was the mother's nanny. The boy is pictured as a 10-year old returning from school. Joey is played by William Dix. The boy is a creitable little actor and wears a short pants suit when he arrives home. He soon changes into jeans which he wears with a striped "T"-shirt, looking rather like an American boy. He wears school sandals with his jeans, rather an unlikely combination. He visits with a teenage girl upstairs. She teases him about still having a nanny. "Does she take your trousers down to smack you?" she taunts. The boy responds vehemetly, "She doesn't dare touch me." The dranged nanny almost kills the mother and son. In the end, a flash of sanity returns as the nanny is drownding Joey in the bath tub.
Silent movie focusing on Napoleon's boyhood. The scenes I saw were of him at about 13 or so in a Catholic military boarding school. He wears a uniform with below the knees pants. The brothers who run the school are very strict.
An 11-year old boy is faced with the prospect of losing a pet lion. He and a companion brave the elements and wild country on a perilous mountain. Johnny Whitaker
Several nuns are involved in a convent scandal as a new abbess is about to be appointed.
Typical Chevy Chase film. The film includes a boy about 12 or so. No interesting costuming.
Typical Chevy Chase comedy about a family's summer vacation. There family has a boy, Rusty, and a girl. Rusty is about 13 or 14, a typical gangly early teen played by Anthony Michael Hall. He mostly wears jeans and long pants. They visit relatives at the beginning of the film. There is a boy about Rusty's age wearing cut off short jeans. In the very last scene set in an amusement park, Rusty finally changes to shorts, khaki OP cord shorts. This style of shorts became popular in the early/mid 1980s in the United States. You rarely, however, saw a boy in the movies or TV wearing them.
Classic children's movie. Way too many girls in this one. Begins in England and boys in nice short pants suits flirt across the screen. The most interesting boy in the story is Donald, Elizabeth Taylor's freckle-faced little brother played nicely by Jackie "Butch" Jenkins. He wears shorts and is about 6 or 7. In one scene his sisters paints his toenails.
A young teenager attempts to preserve his family by contesting his parents' divorce. The boy gives a sensitive performance. He and his friends appear in shorts for several scenes. He is about 13 years-old. It is the same boy that appears as a teen age chowder head in one of those high school sitcoms. Pity as he is was a competent little actor.
Lovely little children's fantasy with two boys. The costumes for the boys, though, was very disappointing. Bastian, a bookish boy (Barrett Oliver), is set upon by bullies and escapes into a magical fantasy book. In the book, Fantasia is in danger of being swallowed up by the nothing. A humble shepherd boy is "Ateyu" is called on to save Fantasia. You might recognized the boy who played "Atreyu", he also played "Boxey" on Battle Star Galactica (Noah Hathaway). Noah's role as Atreyu in Wolfgang Peterson's The Neverending Story, a Warner Bros. release, proved both difficult and challenging for the young actor, requiring him to ride a horse expertly, fly on the back of a dragon, struggle through a swamp, clamber over rocks and fight a ferocious werewolf-like creature. Atreyu is challenged to save the world of Fantasia from the destructive force called--The Nothing. The film begins Bastian discovers a wonderful book called The Neverending Story, which tells a tale of Atreyu and his quest to save Fantasia. The land of Fantasia literally has everything you can imagine, since it is the land of human imagination. As Bastian reads, he discovers that he himself is the one to save Fantasia, and by doing so, he gets lost in the book and must find his true identity in the real world. Part legend, part fable, wholly fascinating, The Neverending Story is a multi-million-copy worldwide publishing sensation. Small and insignificant, Bastian Balthazar Bux is nobody's idea of a hero, least of all his own. Through the pages of an old book, he discovers a mysterious world of enchantment--but a world that is falling into decay. The great task of making things well again falls on Bastian, and there follows a magically evocative story to fulfill your deepest longings.
A WC Fields movie. I haven't seen it but I know there are some kids in it.
A 9-year old girl is sent to live with her aunt who has two boys and a girl, a la Peter Pan. She escapes her loneliness by fantasizing. The two school age boys wear longs. Seems more likely in England at the time that the younger boy would have worn shorts to school. The girl complains that Peter Pan looks like a girl when she sees his statue in Kensington Gardens.
A under cover agent's son is pressed into service when a megalomaniacal villain threatens to contaminate Los Angeles' water supply.
Movie based on the Swedish children's writer Astrid Lindgren about an irrepressible, red haired 11-year old girl. The freckled faced girl with elevated pig tails is an enduring literary character, but as embodied by the New Jersey girl (Tami Erin) who played her, she is a self-centered, irresponsible, and selfish child who runs totally out of control. She is the ultimate latch key kid whose sea captain father is at sea. She resists both school and the orphanage as well as a bevy of other villains such as greedy land developers. The orphanage kids are in uniforms, but the boys all in longs. Some other boys appear, a few in shorts.
"New Frontier" was one in a series called The Three Mesquiteers made by Republic. It was a typical Republic "B" Western, made in a week. It was notable because it was John Wayne's last in the series before he began making more important films. The plot describe the plight of New Hope Valley. Their land has been condemned for a
new reservoir. Child actor Sammy McKim, who did a lot of these Rpublic "B" esterns, appeaed with Wayne and Jenifer Jones.
Teenage orphans go to live with a dreamer uncle who owns a carnival in Florida. The kids are menaced with increasing violence by the local kids.
Keith Mitchell
This is uplifting film about the 1899 New York newsboys' strike in 1899. A brave young newsboy rallies his cohorts against penny-pinching New York newspaper publisher, Joseph Pulitzer. The film stresses the problems faced by boys who did not sell all of their papers. Lots of boys wear knickers, but in large group shots a lot of the boys wears longs. Given the time, I think almost all of the boys would have been in knickers--even relatively older boys. Presumably the producer cut back on the knickers as it is a bit expensive to buy knickers nowadays. The boys of course are all poor kids and thus there outfits are rather ragged. One brief street scene shows a wealthier kid with his mother, he is smartly done up in a sailor suit. Of course in the era in which the film was set, many of the younger newboys might have worn sailor suits as well. The film is a musical so there are a lot of scenes with the boys dancing. HBC readers may be interested in the information developed about American newsboys.
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'Newly rich' sometimes called 'Fiorbidden adventure' was filmed when the talkies were just getting going. Two imperious widows seeking to make it big take off with their kids and of course head to Hollywood. A lot of films at the time had Hollywood plot lines. The kids unexpctedly become pawns and competing movie stars. The girl played by Mitzi Green is sweet, but agressive tomboy. The boy played by a 10-year old Jackie Searl duly outfitted in ringlet curls is a bratty, milk-tost sissy. Searl was often type-cast as a bratty boy. His mother thought the Fauntleroy curls wiould help labnd gigs in films. Mitzi was a more establish child star at the time. Thev two were about the same age and apearred in five films together. Jackie's roles as brats meant that he never got the adulation of several child stars. The rival moms decded to go to London as a publicity stunt. There they American kids begin to get along together as well as make friends with the Eastern European boy King. The three kids decide they have had enough of demanding adults and run away. Of all things they join a gang in the docks. The plot is insipid and improbable. While meant to be a comedy, it is not very funny. But film goers tastes were different in the 30s. And as Disney Snow White wanabe, Rachel Zeglar, who hates 1930s films would put it, 'evidently so'. Incredably the writers included two very impressive people -- Sinclair Lewis and Joseph Mankiewicz.
Story about a time traveler who escapes from another age. His predecessor was Christ. He is too good and gets into trouble with the local population when some boys drown that he has taken out on a boat. The woman who shelters him has a boy. He wears longs which is a little silly as it is set in Greece.
An American family reacts to world-wide radio broadcast, supposedly voiced by God. The family includes a very nice boy, about 13 years old. Unfortunately he wears long trousers.
Nicholas And Alexandra was the movie version of the book written by Robert Maskie. Well made film on the fall of the Tczar. The Tczaravich Alexis wears a white sailor suit with short pants and knee socks. Until World War I began, Alexis almost always did wear sailor suits. Onnce the War began he wore an ordinary-looking Army uniform.
Classic Dickens tale of a young man's attempt to protect his family from the influence of his evil uncle. A very well done British production. Unfortunately very few boys are involved in the film. The scenes at Dotheboy's hall are horrifying, evolving primarily around the older boy, Smythe.
If you liked "The Last American Virgin", you'd like this film, though their themes are very different. It's a coming of age film, similar to "Last American Virgin", with one profound exception. "N and D" is a story of two 17 years old guys who've been friends for some time, though they live in different cities. Nico arrives by train for a summer visit to Dani, expecting that they will do some girl watching and, eventually, find romance. The set-up seems perfect; Dani's parents are away on vacation, and the boys have the house to themselves. The only other visitor is Dani's English language tutor. She lives near Dani's house and gives him lessons at his home. Dani also has romance in mind, but with Nico, not a girl friend!
The film only suggests any love-making among the characters. There is some language not suitable for
every audience, but overall the film has a sweet quality mixed with lots of fun.
Nico the Unicorn is a Canadian American production made in about 1999. Its a production by Graeme Campel with a superb music score by Alan Reeves. Kevin Zegars plays the role of Billy Hastings, a 13
year old boy who is cripple - he walks with a bad limp. He comes from the city, but with the passing away of his father, his mother and himself have moved into a rustic village and stay in an old house.
Billy has to start at a new school in the village and it does not go well.
Two young couples and their children secretly build a hot air balloon to escape Communist East Germany. Several boys involved. In the bits I saw they wore longs.
A woman's son is victimized by a unscrupulous preacher. The boy's father was a bank robber and the preacher wants to find where the money is hidden. The boy, played by Billy Chapin, spots the preacher as a phony from the beginning, but the community is convinced that he is a paragon of virtue.
Chris Ellis
Doug McKeon
Basically uninteresting Greek-period piece. At the very end with the heroes safely secured in paradise, their kids begin running out of the house pleading, mommy tell us a story.
Film classic about children on the run from their evil stepfather-preacher. The film is sent in the 1920s/30s. I haven't seen the film, only snippets. At least one boy, about 12 is involved. In the scene I saw they were wearing nightdresses. I don't how they were normally costumed.
A railroad trouble shooter tries to recover a stolen payroll. Brandon De Wilde appears as a young teenager, about 14. I've only seen parts of it and he was wearing jeans and cowboy clothes.
Drilling for Arctic oil threatens Santa's toy factory at the North pole. A mother and her three children set out to save it. I only saw a small part.
This is a another RMS Titanic disaster film. Titanic was the largest vessel afloat at tghe time. It was assumed to be unsinkable, part of the early-20th century's optimism about the future and technology. This film is a basically fact-based, minute by minute account about the the sinking of the great British ocean oceanliner. Unlike the other films, this is a docudrama there are no imaginative subplots to provide dramatic tension. The film is an adaptation is based on the book A Night to Remember (1955) by Walter Lord. It is the classic account of perhaps the most famous disaster in history. Lord also wrote A Day of Infamy about the Japanese Pearl Harbor attack. Considerable efforts were made to accurately depict the fatefull voyage. The film used sets based on actual blueprints of Titanic. The ship's fourth officer Joseph Boxhall and ex-Cunard Commodore Harry Grattidge were employed as technical advisors. The costuming is also historically accurate. There are a few shots of children. Towards the end of the film when the survivers are on the Carpathia we see a British boy about 6 years old wearing a sailor suit.
An unhappily married woman has an encounter with professional assassins. Her affectionate son about 13 has a small part at the beginning of the film.
A 14-year old Donald O'Conner has a part.
A group of L.A. children are terrorized by a vengeful killer who invades their dreams.
This German film is based on a Swedish children's book. We notice some charming books by Astrid Lindgren. One book is entitled Nils Karlsson Pyssling" (1956). I'm not sure how that translates. Nils Karlsson I believe is the main charactr's name. We do not know a great deal about the book. We have no details about the story line. The book appears to be about a little boy, presumably Nils. He wears short pants and long stockings. The movie costuming seems to follow that shown in the charming illustratins from the book.
Comedy about relationships and pregnancy. In one scene a 13-year old boy throws a tantrum in a psychiatrist's office, shouting that his father is a stupid jerk and other unprintable things. When the boy screams that he hates his father, the psychiatrist slaps him. The French audiences reportedly cheered.
In the U.S. remake there is no slap. One reviewer comments that in U.S. films you are allowed to kill thousands, but not slap an obnoxious kid.
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