Les Inconnus du Désert

This is just a made-for-TV movie, but it is creepy fun. It is also the rare scary movie that you can safely watch with your kids, without traumatizing them. In fact the movie carries quite a strong family values message. There is no explicit gory violence, so those who watch movies looking for that would be disappointed. The thrills here are mostly of the anticipatory kind. I think kids from about 8 to 14 will find much in this movie that they can identify with and that will make them uneasy about how they would react in the situation. There is very good work from Stacy Keach and John Savage and a young Robbie Benson is as good as he ever gets.

All the Kind Strangers is basically just your average made for TV seventies movie - in that it features an interesting base plot, and lets that fill the entire runtime without even attempting to do anything else with it. The result is adequate; though underwhelming. The film begins with a man driving through the woods alone. He encounters a young boy and offers to give him a lift home. Upon arriving at the boy's home, the man finds it inhabited by children; and because his car won't start, he decides to stay there for the night. However, it turns out that the kids have broken his car to make him stay with them as they want him to be their father. The film only runs for about seventy five minutes and doesn't provide a great deal of surprises along the way. Once the plot is laid out, we are left only with the task of getting to the end. The film does feature a good leading performance from Stacy Keach, who gets into his character well and receives good feedback from the likes of Samantha Eggar and John Savage. It all boils down to a rather strange, yet disappointing ending. Overall, this is a long way from being great; but it passes the time at least and I'd say it's just about worth a look.

"A family of seven children are living without parents is (sic) a swampy backwoods area all by themselves. Some of the children get the idea that it would be good to have parents or guardians to look over them so, they take in two strangers and make them the parents they so desperately want. The couple finds that getting away from these children will be more difficult than they imagined," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

Creepy TV movie featuring game performances from: Stacy Keach (as Jimmy Wheeler), Samantha Eggar (as Caroline Henderson), John Savage (as Peter), and Robby Benson (as John). Mr. Keach sets the tone, with a perfectly balanced characterization of a strong and steady man, who must focus on sanely escaping from the trap he drove into. Keach is as good as the role gets. Ms. Eggar and Mr. Savage respond in kind. And, Mr. Benson wisely plays his character as endearingly dimwitted, which is exactly how to handle the scripted part; his singing of the title song "All the Kind Strangers" hits a sour note, however. The lower credited kids are good.

Burt Kennedy's direction and Clyde Ware's script set a good pace. Indeed, the events on-screen seem to add up to more than what actually happens; which is not much, actually. Mr. Ware writes quite tightly; for example: note how smoothly the biscuit argument between Savage and Tim Parkison (as Gilbert) fits into a later event. And, Savage's digressions about life off the farm fit, also. Moreover, Arlene Farber (as Martha) is directed to show some attraction to Keach; this, and the pick-up of young Parkison, helps multiply the underlying uneasiness.

****** All the Kind Strangers (11/12/74) Burt Kennedy ~ Stacy Keach, Samantha Eggar, John Savage, Robby Benson

This movie is kind of like "Lord of the Flies". A family of children (no mother or father present) desire to have guardians (Mom and Dad), so they kidnap a man and woman to be just that. What happens next is (of course) the movie. One thing to note is that not every one of the children (in fact most of them are not) aware of the secret!

All the Kind Strangers was one of the fifty films that came packaged in a box-set titled "Nightmare Worlds", and it was one of the rare films that wasn't science-fiction. Yet it probably has just as reason for being in the box-set as sci-fi flicks; it's got the premise, at the least, and from the description (wedged in with another movie on the one side of a two-sided disc) sounds like a cross between the Little Rascals and Deliverance. At least, that would be the first impression had it reached its potential. As it stands, All the Kind Strangers does keep a hold of its creepiness for a while, as Stacy Keach (playing well as a leading role, which he usually doesn't do) is a photo-journalist who picks up a little kid carrying a big bag of flour back to his home. Just a normal thing, it seems, to help the little critter out. But then it's a long trek through the backwoods, specifically through a creek, and then to a house where there are seven kids and one "mom", who really has been sort of kidnapped by the kids. He's kidnapped too, and made to be their dad as their parents are five-years gone. Dogs line the premises, and the pain kid Peter (John Savage) carries a shotgun. What to do?

There is actually probably a very good movie, even an extremely controversial one (maybe on par with Deliverance if not more-so) with the ingredients here. There's a whole power-structure element in place, the psychological unrest as Peter really is the head of the household- the kids don't know any better, least of all for wacky John (Robby Benson, maybe the most tongue-in-cheek kid actor of the 70s)- and how the kids, including Peter, *do* listen to Keach's 'dad' if he's forceful enough. And there's even subtext thrown in that is never quite cleared up with a mute girl in the bunch (obviously, as Frank Miller once wrote, grew up and filled out) who keeps on eying and making subtle advances towards her new father. This would actually be challenging in better hands, but unfortunately it's A) a TV movie, and B) in an odd way meant as a dark twist for the Little Rascals kid's club. So it ends up playing it safe with material that, in the end, becomes preachy and tacky as the kids all decide that it's better to give in instead of having a ready-made mom and dad at the helm.

Other things like the cars all drowned in the lake (and the fact that who-knows how many people have died is left up in the air), and little technical things with the production (i.e. do the kids really pay for the gas, and if not how come there are lights on in the house? do kids take care of candles that well?) Not to mention the length issue; at 74 minutes the holes are fairly abundant in the plot. But there are strengths here that do come out, even if seeing John Savage might inspire a "I believe in God" bit from Hair, as the acting is more than competent, and given how low the production values are the director gets a good amount of chills from the kids (awkward might be the way to say it) and chase scenes. It could make for a remake in good hands, exploring and altering some of the details. As it stands, it's an OK effort with an undercurrent that's sort of unique.