The Last Load

Before the Children's Film Foundation there was Children's Entertainment Films. Wisely they enlisted the services of John Baxter, who delivered a fast-moving yarn whose use of dramatic close-ups and dynamic editing (culminating in a rollicking showdown shot night-for-night) showed that he obviously knew his Eisenstein.

The obligatory gang of crooks are slightly less comical than in later CFF productions, but that doesn't stop one of the henchmen (SLIGHT SPOILER COMING:) from sabotaging their whole operation by stupidly tossing away a raffle ticket with vital information written on it. (It's always the little things that foil the best-laid schemes.)

A delightful lass called Angela Stewart was the prime mover of the kids, and it even found room for a cameo from dear old Sam Kydd.

John Baxter was one of the preeminent and prolific directors of quota quickie and B pictures and was later involved with Group 3. This is one of his lesser known films.

Whilst this might be a prototype Children's Film Foundation film there are significant differences. Particularly the lack of comedy so far as the crooks are concerned.

Baxter gets fine performances from the children whereas many of the child actors in the OFF give very stilted and uncomfortable performances.

The only actor that I recognise from the cast is John Longden who had a career that stretched back to the silent and forward to television.

THE LAST LOAD is a predecessor to the Children's Film Foundation movies and shares plenty of similarities with them. The heroes are a gang of bright and plucky kids who end up tackling a criminal gang whose action seem almost murderous at times. The young hero is a particularly interesting character, a Scottish lad with a talent for fixing objects, running his own little repair shop in his spare time. Hard to imagine him in the modern era! The villains are entertaining, as per usual, and the adults are generally helpful which makes a change for this genre. Most impressive of all is the direction, which adds a real frisson of excitement and entertainment to the proceedings; it's just that good.

Quite a tough little film with a particularly nasty, vindictive ex-employee sabotaging a firm's lorries after being sacked for persistently smoking near petrol outlets. He then falls in with a bunch of crooks with much more ambitious aims.

The "hero" is a youngster with an aptitude for repairing...anything! He and his spirited sister save the day, with help from other kids, adults (including the lady at the local "caff") and the police getting into the action late in the day, with an extended chase and fight sequence that just about avoids Keystone Cops comparisons.

Another valuable snippet of post-War life. This was part of Rank's short-lived Children's Entertainment Films series; the Children's Film Foundation series started soon after.

Thanks to UK's Talking Pictures channel for giving this a showing.

Very similar to the later Children's Film Foundation films and even had the seemingly essential CFF scene of a baddie getting wet. Very enjoyable with a good plot and acting and a glimpse of bits of the UK long gone. A bit of a shame that more were not made but CFF filled the gap very well.

I recommend watching as many CFF films as possible as they are all very enjoyable but I'm not sure if they would appeal to youngsters these days as many are not in colour and are not full of CGI deemed to be essential in a film these days. Some of the child actors became famous later but most were never seen again.