Desperate Search

The Desperate Search that Howard Keel is on is for his children whom he has custody of for six weeks every summer as per the court agreement with ex-wife Patricia Medina. The two kids, Lee Aaker and Linda Lowell, survive a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness and are on their own in the woods.

As was the custom in those bygone days of the big studios you had someone under contract you kept them working. In Keel's case they had no big musical property for him at the moment so he was put into this B film which could have used color to accentuate the nice rural settings the film was shot in.

Desperate Search had the action alternate between the kids and their struggle to survive and the search and rescue operation which Keel and Medina are both part of as they are both pilots. In the former young Lee Aaker stands out as he tries to keep himself and his perpetually whining and crying sister safe and moving from the wreck to where he thinks dad might be searching. Through most their scenes the two children are playing tag with a hungry mountain lion and the most frightening scene in the film is little Linda Lowell wading into a river to escape the mountain lion.

Medina is a competitive sort by nature and her competitiveness carried over into the marriage which caused the breakup. Keel's second wife is supportive Jane Greer who is not a pilot and she and Medina almost get to scrapping the way Alexis and Crystal used to on Dynasty.

Desperate Search moves at a nice pace and the cinematography and editing is really first rate. A few more production values and this could have been an A feature.

Two very young children who were on vacation visiting their father and stepmother are scheduled to be sent home by a commercial airline to their mother. Unfortunately the plane disappears and their estranged father who is a pilot immediately goes into search mode. The kids birth mother also is a pilot and she flies her own plane to the site where her children disappeared from.

The two estranged parents, both seasoned pilots, very quickly come to terms as to why they got divorced when the argument escalates regarding which is the best plan to find their missing children.

While the parents travel on alternate flight patterns searching the sky for their children in case they survived the crash, the audience sees how these two young children who miraculously survived the crash are now laid bare to the whims of the wilderness and the wild animals who hunt to kill. I felt this film had the look and feel of a family adventure film that the Walt Disney studio may have released.

The acting was good, the story line holds true to being an adventure film, and the ending which I will not give away was worth waiting for. I give this near seventy (70) year old film a decent 6 out of 10 IMDB rating and would recommend it to others as a two thumbs up film.

Desperate Search (1952)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Interesting drama from MGM about father (Howard Keel) and his new wife (Jane Greer) who must search the wilderness after a plane crashes with the man's two children. Things get a little testy as his ex-wife and the mother (Patricia Medina) of the children shows up and causes more harm that good. The introduction by Robert Osbourne mentioned that MGM was trying to cut out their multi-million dollar pictures and try their hand at smaller productions and this here is one of them. The film isn't a complete success but it's certainly a lot better than its reputation would have you believe. I think the obviously small budget hurts the film somewhat as there's a lot of action that we never get to see. This includes the actual plane crash, which in most disaster type pictures would have been the film's highlight. Instead, we briefly see the plane on fire and that's pretty much it. Another minor problem is a few goofs including, after the crash, the two kids being shown without a cut and their hair and clothes appear like they just stepped out of a trailer and not out of a plane crash. With that said, the film still offers some pretty intense scenes especially when the children come under attack by a mountain lion. There are at least three of these scenes and each on is pretty intense. Another plus is that Keel and Greer are very good in their roles. This isn't the type of picture you'd expect to see them in but both do good jobs. Medina easily steals the film as the ex-wife who never overplays the part yet still manages to be very believable and actually turns out to be one of the most hated villains in a film like this. Keenan Wynn does a good job in his part as does Lee Acker as the 9-year-old son. I don't normally bash child actors but Linda Lowell plays his younger sister and I must say she gives one of the worst performances I've ever seen from a child. The screenplay has her mostly crying and screaming, which is fine but unfortunately the child couldn't cry and it's obvious the director just had her screaming to make up for this. Here scenes are all pretty bad when trying to "act" like she's crying and it becomes very obnoxious. The limited budget doesn't give us too much footage in the wilderness but at 71-minutes the film goes by pretty quickly and manages to be entertaining despite a few problems.

Overall, I enjoyed this little film, but what almost forced me to give up on it was young Janet's incessant whining and crying throughout the ordeal. Her older brother should have received a medal for putting up with her.

"Desperate Search" is a film that lost a lot of money at the box office. I can't say for sure why this happened but wonder if perhaps word got out that the child actors (particularly the little girl) were really annoying.

Two kids are on a DC-3 airliner and the plane crashes in the winderness. Somehow the children survive but the rest of the passengers and crew do not. Judging by how darned annoying the little girl is, I wish that some others had survived instead! Regardless, the pair are stranded and a search party is out looking for them. And, it just so happens that the kids' parents both are pilots and assist in the efforts.

Much of the time the little girl, Janet, is on screen, she's either crying, whining about SOMETHING or crying for her father. I know kids would be hysterical in such a situation....at least for a little while. But her behavior was not just annoying and off-putting but it seemed over the top as well. I just can't imagine audiences back in the day liking to see this awful kid on the screen....and probably were hoping a bear or mountain lion would just eat her!

Without Janet, the film was mildly interesting. But it really hurt the story to have her in it because I can't imagine any parent WANTING to find this brat.