Children’s Film Foundation Bumper Box Vol 6 – Review
By Sarah Morgan
If you’re a similar age to me, chances are you spent many a school break watching offerings from the Children’s Film Foundation. They were staple parts of holiday viewing, broadcast to keep younger viewers occupied between episodes of Laurel and Hardy or Harold Lloyd.
Watching them now is like being wrapped in a warm blanket of nostalgia, even if, as in the case of the latest batch to be released by the BFI, the quality is a little hit-and-miss.
“Genuine danger”
Originally set up in 1951 to produce movies for special Saturday morning children’s picture shows, the Foundation provided early projects for directors such as Gerald Thomas (who later made the Carry Ons) and Lewis Gilbert (he went on to direct three Bond movies as well as Alfie and Educating Rita), as well as roles for future stars including David Hemmings and Richard O’Sullivan.
Sadly, none of them are involved in the nine films across three discs in this new batch, although Francesca Annis, Jeremy Bulloch and Susan George do pop up, while older, more established folk, among them Anthony Bate, Joe Brown, Irene Handl, Sam Kydd, Barry Foster, Michael Elphick and Wilfrid Brambell, also feature in films made between 1954 and 1980.
It’s interesting to see how the productions develop over that 26-year stretch. The first few are rather staid, ever-so-polite (and rather slow) stories, but by the end, the tales are much more hard-hitting and involve genuine danger for their young protagonists.
“Scrambling up cliffs”
At the heart of them all are plucky youngsters doing their best to stay one step ahead of adults who seem determined to mess things up at every available opportunity. There’s also a distinct lack of health and safety involved; kids do a lot of scrambling up cliffs and climbing in unsuitable places than you would see on TV without the use of CGI these days.
Each disc also features various extras, including short equine film Forest Pony, an episode of TV series The Chiffy Kids (actually, this is a low point for the release – not only are the supposedly lovable imps involved completely annoying, the theme tune will remain in your head for days) and excellent documentary ‘A CFF Production: Johnny on the Run’.
The latter focuses on one of the Foundation’s earliest hits which, sadly, isn’t included in the set. Instead, it’s on a previous release, subtitled ‘Runaways’. You’d better start saving your pocket money for it, because you’re sure to want it.
Sarah Morgan studied film journalism at post-graduate level with the BFI and has been writing about TV and film for PA Media’s newspaper, magazine and new media customers since 1996. She’s also written for a wide range of other publications, both online and in print, including the book Offbeat and Intermission magazine, and is a regular contributor to the Talking Pictures TV podcast. When she isn’t watching movies, she’s collecting and reading vintage crime and horror paperback books or, for her sins, watching her beloved Sheffield Wednesday.
- Disc 1 Chase 1950s egg thieves across the Channel Islands with a marching band in Mystery on Bird Island, marvel at a magic marble that makes your toys massive in One Wish Too Many, then foil a felonious feline-fancier with Francesca ‘Dune’ Annis and Jeremy ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ Bulloch in The Cat Gang!
- Disc 2 See off the Army’s regimental rotters who want to steal your beach (but fetch them back to defuse an unexploded bomb) in Rockets in the Dunes, take a colourful 1960s plunge into the deep blue sea diving off the Maltese coast with Susan ‘Up the Junction’ George, then join rock’n’roller Joe Brown, Wilfrid ‘Steptoe and Son’ Brambell and Irene ‘The Italian Job’ Handl on the trail of bashful big cat Simba in Lionheart!
- Disc 3 Park up your Chopper and slip off your cycle clips before you meet the sentient steam traction engine on a mission to flatten the vicar’s village fête vegetable stall in the 1970s classic Smokey Joe’s Revenge, evade malevolent marauder Michael ‘Boon’ Elphick after you get all washed up on Black Island, then – edging into the electric 1980s – confound an escaped convict simply by doing some adding up on a state-of-the-art pocket calculator in Danger on Dartmoor!
