The Little Kidnappers

The Little Kidnappers has to be one of the best family viewing films I've seen in a very long time. What makes it so good is the performances of the two young boys Leo Wheatley and Charles Miller as the grandsons of family patriarch Charlton Heston who've come to turn of the last century Nova Scotia to live with him and their grandmother Patricia Gage and aunt Leah Pinsent after their parents died. Heston's son was killed in the Boer War and he has a vigorous dislike for those people.

Heston's a tough hard man who had tough hard life. We learn he wasn't good as a parent in many ways and looks like he hasn't learned anything.

The title comes from the fact that one of the boys finds a baby abandoned on the beach and they hide it in a cave and try to care for it in the best way children can. They don't want the infant to grow up as they just might under a stern parent as Heston has become.

Leah Pinsent has some issues as well. She's keeping company with Bruce Greenwood a recent Boer immigrant to Canada who's a doctor and she dare not let Heston find out.

The two boys really make this film. The adult players including Charlton Heston have a lot of trouble keeping up with them. They acted so natural like real kids instead of Hollywood kids that you see in so many films. The hardest heart in the world will melt with these two and Heston has just that in the film.

Topping it all off is some beautiful photography of Nova Scotia. The Little Kidnappers which is a remake of a Fifties British film is one of the best family films I've seen in a long time.

I don't suppose it's very often that anyone would have to compare Charlton Heston with Scottish actor Duncan Macrae but this remake of the 1953 story gives us the chance - and to be honest, I preferred the original. The tale finds two young orphans traveling to Nova Scotia to be with their grandfather. He's a stern man who wants no truck with his Boer neighbours. The youngsters initially fall in with his attitudes, but boys will be boys and gradually they make their own choices. Things come to an head when they discover a baby on the dunes by the sea and secretly try to rear him whilst all hell breaks loose in their community terrified about the whereabouts of the missing child. This is a gentle story that deals with bigotry and hatred pointing out the futility and negativity of such behaviour, and also of how optimism is bourne by future generations who refuse to be bogged down in the failings of past generations. It's nicely shot, the cast do a decent job and the film is perfectly watchable, if really only notable for the attendance of this Hollywood legend.

Gosh, we must have been watching a different movie.

My family and I absolutely love this story. A nudge to an earlier poster - the plot seemed perfectly clear to me, the baby was on the shore because his brother, who was supposed to be baby-sitting him at home, took him there. Then when the child thought something awful must have happened to the baby, he didn't dare tell his mum and dad. It wasn't until the searchers had looked everywhere that he finally confessed he'd taken the baby to the seashore.

We really liked the performances, especially the kids and Bruce Greenwood. Incredibly charming and completely believable, I thought.

The Canadian setting was very beautiful, too.

It's a Disney movie, I thought, although IMDb says some other company made it.

Charlton Heston may have won an Oscar, but after seeing Heston's performance in this film I wonder for what. Best Ham Performance by an actor perhaps?

Otherwise, aside from a slightly uneven script and some odd camera shots, this a sweet and charming film ideal for family viewing. The scenery is wonderful and the musical score is perfect. Leah Pinsent as the MacKenzie daughter Kirsten is very appealing, and Bruce Greenwood, as her Dutch suitor Dr. Wilhem Hooft,is quietly sexy and sincere. He also has affected the best accent of the bunch, having reportedly researched it so that it is convincing if not necessarily authentic. The best reason to see this film are the two sweet young ones playing the little MacKenzie brothers. They are wonderful actors and carry the film well. Everyone should watch and see for themselves.

This movie is charming and lovely, the acting is superb.