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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 been analized by HBC for clothing information, but more pages are being added all the time. We incourage HBC readers to comment on their favorite films.
Anthony Michael Hall
Includes a tall lively 11-year old boy who gets into trouble over a poor report card. It is reviewed at the dinner table with his sisters present. He is sent to his room. Father, tight-lipped and carrying a broad wooden ruler enters and in a flash the boy has undressed and is over his bed on his stomach. He is beaten hard, the sounds carry throughout the house. Later the boy shyly remarks that he got only 18, not the usual 20. Eventually he is beaten again, but that session is less graphically presented. A totally charming, natural boy. Setting is about 1910.
A HBC reader has reported a wonderful Australian TV-movie--The Valley Between. It is a two disc movie, which I think it was produced for TV. Almost 5 hours in length.
It is about a German family that immigrated to Australia in the 1920s. All the scenes are in this valley with a one village store, one room school house, and a grange hall. It is about Bruno who has three sisters and a strict father. They showed farm and school life with all the chores that boys and girls were required to do in this era. There were grange hall dances, Lutheran church services and the different styles of clothing required. All the boys always wore short trousers up to the age of 15 or 16 years. Our reader writes, "My wife and I found this movie quite charming and brought back old memories of the farm chores you had to do. In one scene the pastor of the church was invited to their farm house and the boy was waxing and polishing the floor on his hands and knees for his visit. The mother said: 'I want to see you face on this floor'."
Another uninteresting movie, but a little compesino boy has a small part. He is a poor Mexican boy, but when the group that he has adopted start making money (exhibiting the dinosaur Gwangi), they buy him fancy new clothes--a tan short pants suit which he wears with matching knee socks. He looks quite different than the other Mexican children in his suit. Interestingly all the other boys in the extensive street scenes wear longs. Unfortunately there aren't a lot of good shots of him in his suit. There is quite a long sequence when Gwangi breaks loose and tears up the city, but the number of good shots is limited.
Made for TV movie about a young American couple with a son in Paris. He is a cute little guy appearing in shorts and stockings and later in knickers. He dies tragically and the husband blames his wife. They divorce and she remarries. Her new son (Alex D. Linz) is kidnapped and they blame her first husband.
Silent film with Tim Holt playing as a 10-year old.
Prohibition and women sufregettes appear to be stirring up trouble in Ole Virginia. The film is set in Lynchburg, Virginia during 1913. The film is about the family of a prosecuting attorney and unconventional family. This enjoyable, sentimental movie is based on Rebecca Yancy Williams' memoir of her family in a Lynchburg. Colonel Bob has a long destinguished career of public service. Frank Morgan plays Colonel Robert Yancy, and Spring Byington as his spirited wife--Rosa (Spring Byington). Interesting counterpoint to "Kings Row" made about the same time, but with a different take on small-town America. The town is scandalized by a speech he gives against Prohibition. The family servant Josh (Leigh Whipper) asks Yancey to help Aunt Mandy and Jefferson Brown. Rosa convinces her husband not to run for procecutor again. Then here is Jack
Holden (Mark Daniels). He is leaving and asks his sweetheart Margaret Yancey (Natalie Thompson) to wait for him. Yancey after gathering some facts tells Aunt Mandy that he has no choice but to prosecute Jefferson but
says he'll help get him a competent lawyer. Yancey despite the popular opinion is convinced that Prohibition is unenforceable. He tells James Rogard ththis. Yancey and James find Rebecca Yancey (Kathryn Grayson) fighting with her little brother Joel (Scotty Beckett). Robert Yancey Jr. (Dickie Jones) got a bloody nose out of the fight. Joel gets into more trouble. He tries smoking, gets sick, and ends up starts a fire.
George "Spanky" McFarland
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The movie “Vasyok Trubachev and His Class-mates” (“Vasyok Trubacherv I yego tovarischi”) was made in 1956 and is a standard Stalinist era film. The main heroes were three boys from 4th grade, very good friends. Vasya is the true leader of the Pioneer squad. He is very responsible, athletic, learns good, can use instruments (like axe, saw etc.) and dreams to be a train locomotive driver like his father. (Note the choice of a working-class biy.) Kolya is very disciplined, principle, active, learns good. He is an older brother in a big family, so he can to make a dinner, care for children and even sew. Sasha is the smallest and weakest boy in the class. He is depicted as the only boy in the class still wearing short pants with long stockings, but he learns good (again), knows a lot about sciences, communications and so on. All the children in the movie are depicted schematically, they are so serious and in my opinion are more like small adults or even a small robots. They all tell long and boring speeches about “duty of a Soviet pioneer”, “being a true Soviet pioneer” and so on. Adults, the class teacher and the school Pioneer leader are depicted as “true communist” and “true comsomol member”. The plot of the movie is very primitive and liveless. This reflects Soviet film making during the Stalinist era. Imagination and complexity were not characteriztics that were highly prised in film making and literature. In fact they could get you in a lot of trouble. Stalin died in 1953 and Khruchev denounced him at the 20th Party Congress (1956). It took longer for the impact of Stalin to loosen his grip on Soviet film making.
A boy's morals are warped after he sees his father humiliated.
Good suspenseful thriller based on a novel by the same name. Nothing of special interest, but an American boy (if I remember correctly) plays a central part in the story. He accidentally brings a venomous snake into the house and is then seized by kidnappers. The film is set in London and if I remember correctly there is a brief scene at his school, but the children don't wear uniforms. I think it is a school for Americans and they are all in longs.
A lovely picture about a boy's obsession with the sea. Set in the Orkney Islands during the 1940s. Peter is about 10 or so and lives in a small fishing village. He is outfitted in typical British short trousers and knee socks.
An American undercovers a German youth organization formed by a group of ex-NAZIs in occupied Germany.
The Brady clan try to get together for Christmas. Based on the TV series "The Brady Bunch" (US, 1969-74) which is a very good reflection of some 1970s children's clothing. Several boys are involved (the grandkids), updating the fashions to the 1980s. The boys wore the typical 70s jeans.
Another "Brady Bunch" spoof using a new generation of Bradies. Bobby in this one wears shorts. In the original he amazingly never wore shorts (despite being set in California)--except for a trip to Hawaii. I think the boy's name was Jesse Lee. The other two boys wore the "wierd" 1970s stuff, but Jesse wore plain looking just-above-the knee shorts with white ankle socks.
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HBC knows nothing about this film other than it is a French film and seems to deal with both a boarding school and a regular state day school. The boys in some scenes wear blazers and short pants with white ankle socks. They wear strange little ties. Other scenes show them in smocks and berets as might be worn in a regular state school. It looks to be set in the 1940s, primarily based on the car. School uniforms were less common in France than England. These uniforms look rather like a British prep school. The strange little ties and the white socks, however, are clues that these boys attend a French school. Hopefully a French reader will tell us a little bit about this film.
A 9 year old boy loves to wear girl clothes and the whole world including parents and schoolmates think he is nuts. His mother is sympathetic, but his brother and father or not. He gets into trouble at school and the other boys beats him up. He makes one friend and that child's mother helps his mother to be more understanding. It has been a while since I saw the show, but I believe that his friend was a girl who liked to wear boys' clothes. In the end, his family becomes more understanding, but they move away from their neighborhood.
The boy was played by French child actor George de la Fresne.
A German reader asks, "The novel by Henry de Montherlant "La ville dont le un enfant" (The City of One Child) was made into a film in 1969. My question is, what is the name of the film and who directed it." A French reader tells me that the title isn't quite right and that a word or two is missing. Another HBC reader believes that the fim in question is probably "La ville dont le prince est un enfant" [The City whose Prince is a Child"] by Christophe Malavoy (1996). Adapted from a novel by Henry de Montherlant, written in 1950 or 1951. It was first performed as a play. The folm is set in a highly regulated French Roman-Catholic secondary school early in the 20th century. I do not yet have any details on the school uniform. Sevrais (Naël Marandin) is a brilliant 17-year old who is enchanted by Souplier (Clément van der Bergh), a much younger boy. Father Pradts (Christophe Malavoy) is set to thwart this friendship which, as the boys are in different grades, was contrary to school rules. It becomes clear that his motivation is not only upholding and enforcing school rules but other more complicated motivations as well. He then tries to have Sevrais expelled. Another HBC reader reports that was a 1997 TV film directed by Christophe Malavoy. No references are available on an earlier version.
Lovely little movie about an uncaring father sending his son off to a dreadful boarding school. Through a magical event, the two change places. Quite a good movie, but unfortunately the boy wears longs. Only his little brother wears shorts and he has only a small role. He is chased all over the house by his "father" armed with a cane. The boy is played by Anthony Newley, who is introduced in the credits as "England's Darling".
A boy played by Fred Savage ("The Wonder Years") changes place with the high school principal. I haven't seen it, but I think this version concentrates more on the adult reincarnation than the boy. The father, as the boy, has to contend with pop quizzes and bullies in the rest room. I have seen clips and Fred is cute as a button in it, but I believe he wears longs throughout. Fred is a very engaging little actor, although I understand he became a bit of a pain with all his success.
While other villagers are asleep under a spell, children are born who turn into intellectual giants at the age of nine and force their evil on adults. The boys are about 10 or 11 and wear very smart British school-boy shorts and knee socks. Martin Stephens
Reasonable melodrama about a small mining town, an impending bank robbery, and the various little peccadillos of the town folk. The movie opens at the mine, but quickly shifts to the town where the son of the movie's main character (Billy Chapin) is having a fight with his best friend. They are surrounded with their school mates, all uniformly dressed in jeans. The boy has a small part throughout, but the costuming that I saw was strictly jeans and pajamas. I didn't see the end though. One nice little bit was a Amish family with a boy about 10 or so who wears curls. I think the movie will shift to the Amish farm near the end, so the little Amish boy may appear again.
Poignant coming of age saga set in the Balkans at the end of the last Century. Peasants believe that every family needs a male heir to ward off malevolent forces. A boy must come or evil flows. In the film, a farmer has three daughters and decides to insist the newborn was a boy. She is raised as a boy and goes along with the charade even as she grows up. Half believing that she really is a boy, she goes all out to prove it. Her identity is finally revealed as she approaches puberty in a touching and amusing scene when a boy kisses her. The crunch comes when her parents have a fourth daughter. She steals her, afraid that her desperate father might kill the newborn.
Luis Bunue's allegorical look at Catholic mores.
Elton John's music video has a short sequence about a cute school boy who has a crush on a sixth-former, who is remarkable for his looks and athletic prowess. We see the younger boy watching his hero exercising on the parallel bars in the school gym, the older boy glances at him. A nice overall treatment of the hero worship theme, the boy cries in bed thinking of his idol.
A mother's quest for a Christmas tree turns disastrous after she caught in a blizzard. One boy and a dog are involved, but there are no interesting costumes.
A Russian correspondent sent me this still from 'Volcano' / 'Скачать', at least Inthinkn that is the title. It is a 1968 Soviet children's film. It is about a boy, a girl, and their dog. It seems to have the word 'Volcano'. That msy be their dog's name. Dogs in the Soviet Union were much less common than in the West. Properly feeding them was a problem. And during the Stakinist era, keeping a dog as a pet was considered terribly bourgeois. We don't know anything about the film.
We can tell something of the costuming from available images. The girl is obviously wearing tan long stockings with the Russian equivalent of a garter waist. We suspect the costuming is accurate for 1968 in the Soviet Union.
Beguiling film with Marcello Mastroianni plays a father who has kidnapped 12 children, boys from about 3 to 13. The title translates, "The Colonel's Children." I have only seen a still, but it looks very interesting. The boys are all dressed in white night shirts or smocks.
Little Pascal and his grandfather cross France in a ballon. Many humorous adventures. Directed by the same person who directed "The Red Balloon."
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A little Japanese boy, Johnny Sokko, and his giant flying robot in this film fight tomsave Tokyo from an evil alien monster--Daconian. Tere is also Emperor Guillotine. Evil space monsters for some reason all seem to go after Tokyo. one reviwer describes as a 'dog-faced lizard' monster. That is as good a descroption as we cam come up with. It has been described as campy, writing, "It doesnt get any campier than this." But that was not what the director had in mind. 'Voyage Into Space' follows the adventures of Johnny Sokko, played by Mitsunobu Kaneko. Unlike many American child stars, he did not have an extensice career. He was, however, emacuately dressed in a doubke-breasted short pants suit. Johnny has gained control of a giant flying robot from the evil space invading Gargoyle Gang led by Draconian. The Gargoyle has an endless supply of horrid giant monsters and su-glaased imiformed men atg his disposal. Actually the film was based on the 'Johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot" TV serie (1967-68). Rather than actually shoot the film, the profucers stitched together four episodes of the TV series. Draconian has his heart set on destroying Tokyo which Johnny and his giant robot friend along with the Unicorn secret agents are defending. This was of course just one of many monster films taht became a Japanese genre after World War II like 'Ultraman' andofcourse 'Godzilla'. Many of which were done with childrren. We are not sure why monsters were such popular fare in Japan. Or why they were so often pared with children. The speceal effects were particularly cheesy. But in the days before 'Star Wars' this was usually the case and rememnber this was made as a TV program. We think it was made a childtem's program. We are not sureabout Japanese destribution, but in the States was released by American International. In the states it was mostly viewed by boys in after-school TV programs for children. Girls did not share the boys' viewing tates. And now it is a classic of goofy Japanese monsters and TV vieewrs who see it as a campy 1970s cinena. The film begins with the alien flying saucer destroyomg interceptor jets. The aliens unleash a aquid-like monster that begins destroying ships. One of which is carries Johnny Sokko and Mr. Mano, a Unicorn agent. Sokko and a man he met on the boat called Mr. Mano who is actually a secret agent get shipwrecked on an isolated island where a captured scientist is forced to build advanced weaponry. There they encounter the prolific Gargoyle Gang that wants to conquer the world whiuch is about to deploys a powerful giant robo. Hohnny manages to gain comtrol id Giant Robot and use it to combat the alien invaders and the Gargoyle Gang. The film is a=swirl of giant rubber monsters smashing toy tanks, secret agennts, uniformed crimianl gang, terrifying monsters, captive scientists, secret weapons, space aliens, a giant robot, a boy who wields a gun and communicates through a Dick Tracy wristwatch--all in the era before smart phones.
Lovely little tribute by John Mortimer to his eccentric father. A stage play adapted for television. The father is blinded by an accident. But they all avoid mentioning the problem. About half the movie deals with his boyhood. The boy (Alan Cox) is about 8 years old and wears shorts throughout except at the end of the boyhood scene and he dons longs briefly as a transition to the adult phase. There are several interesting shots at the boy's prep school. All of the boys are in jackets, ties, and shorts. If you are quick there are some older boy moving in and out various scenes. Several scenes are with a friend who he brings home The friend laughs when the headmasters makes a biblical reference to intercourse and is sent from the morning auditorium. Perhaps the highlight is the headmasters talk on the facts of life to a group of mystified new boys. At a Veterans Days service several boys are pictured in short shorts, but the two main characters wear quite long, baggy shorts. After the main characters marries, his wife already had children. The boy always wear shorts and sandals.
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The BBC did an excellent made for TV film of Charles Darwin's epic voyage on the HMS Beagle-- 'The Voyage that Shook the World'. It includes a short depiction of Darwin's boyhood. His portrayal begins as an 8-year old boy. The scenes and the boy's acting are very good, but the costuming is not very accurate. He is shown wearing a white shirt with a Oliver Twist cap, ‘Peter Pan’ collar, suspender knee pants, white stockings, and high-top shoes. He wears a brown waistcoat. He is shown with long hair. The images suggest a free thinking child who enjoyed solitary walks through the countryside. On these excursions he would study natural history and collect plants and insects. He also had a sketch pad and drew the things he saw. An interesting, charming boy is depicted who shows a fascination for natural history. He is also shown as a teller of tall stories at family entertainments. His imagination knew no bounds and he created stories for these entertainments out of thin air. The film tells about his family background. His father was a successful surgeon. His mother a daughter of the Wedgwood family. His grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was also interested in natural history and had written a book called Zoonomia. This was a favorite book of Charles. The film makes much of this and there are scenes in which Darwin is shown reading from it and taking notes. The film then cuts from being a boy to manhood. The rest of the film is taken up with Darwin's voyage and the Beagle and much later in life, his book Origins of the Species--one of the greatest books ever written.
One of the Lassie movies, set in the Southeast. I haven't seen it, so I don't know if a boy is involved.
Bobby Blake had a small part.
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