80 Steps to Jonah

I feel that there was excellent casting in this picture. Wayne Newton handled the lead quite well - he played it with heart, but resisted the temptation to make it overly sentimental. Not afraid of being upstaged by animals or children, he worked well with them to tell us a beautiful story. Brought to the foreground was how independent people with disabilities can really be. The music, too, was a definite plus!

I recently ran across a letter that I sent to my mom on 11MAY70 from Da Nang, Viet Nam. 80 Steps must of made some kind of impression for this young Marine to write home about altho 32 years later I have no recall about the movie. I wrote "that it was a real family type film and a tear jerker, but a lot of guys really liked it" so now I need to go find a copy on video and see what impressed me so.

I remember this as a dog of a movie that played on a late-evening flight from O'Hare to San Francisco in January, 1969. Wayne Newton was awful. I saw that he was in a car accident and that he ran away from the police, for some reason. After a bit, I went to sleep, only waking up when Mickey Rooney wandered through to save Newton and a happy ending.

This afternoon, something itched in my brain, so I went looking on IMDB for a Mickey Rooney movie. This is it. I almost never walk out of movies, I would have walked out of this if the exit had not been about 30,000 feet up.

I watched this movie when I was about 12 years old. I was spending the night with my Grandmother in the late 70's and we happened to be up late talking. This movie came on the late night movie and it has stuck in my memory. My Grandmother and I both loved this movie and we went through many tissues. My Grandmother passed away about 8 year ago and one of my many fondest memories with her was the night we watched this movie together. I would love to see this movie again. I have only saw it once and it made a great impact on me. Any recomendations to where I may be able to rent it would be greatly appreciated. I would definitely rate this a must see movie. (They don't make em' like this anymore.)

I saw this on Cable years and years ago, and I think of it so often. It's like losing a good friend by moving away. I hate that I can't play it any time I want. I think I will write to the cable companies and find out how to request that it play. Every other movie plays over and over. This one should too. I take offense to the writer who said this was a bad Elvis-type movie. Wayne Newton was young then, and probably hadn't even been compared to Elvis at that time. This is a cute little family movie that makes you feel like there may be a little good in the world after all. Nowadays, you don't get too much of that. I sure hope I am able to get a copy of this movie. I would love to sit and watch it with my Grandson. Thank you for your time.