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.

After spending time in a London orphanage, Harry and Davy arrive in 1903 Nova Scotia on a boat and are soon met by their grandfather James MacKenzie. He takes the boys to live with him, their grandmother and their Aunt Kirsten. James hates Boers because his son, the boys' father, died in the Boer Wars. He will not let Boers farm the land he and his son cleared. And his prejudices lead to Harry getting in trouble at school. Another possible complication: Kirsten is attracted to Willem, the doctor, who is a Boer.

James was not educated because he had to help out on the family farm. He is very religious--he won't allow pictures in the house and he opposes dancing. Though he thinks nothing of pulling a gun on his enemies.

The movie's title comes from the fact that the boys find a baby abandoned on the beach and decide to take care of it themselves, afraid of what would happen if they tell anyone, because they know what it is like to live in an orphanage.

This is a good family film but nothing spectacular. It focuses on traditional values and has a 'Little House on the Prairie' quality to it. James is stern but loving, though not as easygoing as Pa Ingalls. He expects much from his grandchildren and believes in corporal punishment. The boys' grandmother provides an appropriate balance, showing sympathy for the boys when it is needed but still faithful. Kirsten is quite appealing and somewhat attractive though not beautiful. And the boys are the center of the film.

All the acting performances were just fine, right down to the child playing the baby. I was surprised to see that Charlton Heston played James, because while he was good, he wasn't THAT good.

We need more family films like this.

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

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.