When I Grow Up

It was from reading these comments that I located the film in 16mm and later transferred it to video. Bobby Driscoll has always been a favorite of mine and everyone I have been in touch with says that this was his best film.This is a very special and wonderfully sentimental story that should be seen by every male of any age. I, like so many others, cried at the end. It brought back memories of my parents and the struggles of being a young teenager. This film is also blessed with an inspired musical score. The opening theme will haunt you for a long time. When I Grow Up is a classic and should be available on video! Let's unite and demand it!

I saw this film by accident; it was a second, unbilled, feature at a Saturday matinée I attended when I was 9. I have no idea, now, what that first feature was, but this movie took me in and moved me in a way that had never happened before. Laughed before, yes. Been scared -- of course! Hid my eyes and left the theater peering ahead at dark corners and the spaces between streetlights, certainly.

With this film, however, for the first time (and not the last), I found myself crying in a theater. I am certain, now, I wasn't in tears for the people in the film, but for my own life and at the way I had always responded to my grandfather. The movie -- dare I say this -- held a mirror to the reality I knew as a well cared-for middle-class kid in a small eastern town at mid-century and let me know that I, too, would some day grow up, grow old, come to know sorrow and, one day, die.

Soon, very soon after this, I encountered Citizen Cane on late night television and all things changed again. But this little film opened me up to the power and potential that movies can have toward making people see, understand and feel.

I have been looking for this movie for 47 years. At times I thought I had the wrong title. I only saw the movie once but it influenced my thinking then and still today. I saw myself as Josh/Danny Reed. It was like looking into a mirror. I changed my attitude toward my relationship with peers, younger and older persons. I learned to treat people with respect and expect respect when deserved.

I saw this film by accident. It was a second, unbilled, feature at a Saturday matinee I attended when I was 9. I have no idea, now, what that first feature was, but this movie took me in and moved me in a way that had never happened before. Laughed before, yes. Been scared of course! Hid my eyes and left the theater peering ahead at dark corners and the spaces between streetlights.

With this film, however, for the first time (and not the last), I found myself crying in a theater. I am certain, now, I wasn't in tears for the people in the film, but for my own life and at the way I had always responded to my grandfather. The movie -- dare I say this -- held a mirror to the reality I knew as a well cared-for middle-class kid in a small eastern town at mid-century and let me know that I, too, would some day grow up, grow old, come to know sorrow and, one day, die.

Soon, very soon after this, I encountered Citizen Cane on late night television and all things changed again. But this little film opened me up to the power and potential that movies can have toward making people see, understand and feel.

when i read the review by "meister-5" of kansas, city, missouri, regarding this motion picture, i thought i had written it. it is so sad that such an influential work has not made it to vcr and sold/rented on the marketplace. what a shame. the storyline is excellent and the acting is fabulous. it is clean and it impacted my life very similarly to that of your commenter "meister-5". i appreciate the info provided by imdb!