Friday, 8 March 2019

SAMMY GOING SOUTH ***


SAMMY GOING SOUTH. A road movie with a difference since the road young Sammy must travel runs all the way from Port Said in Egypt, where his parents have been killed in an air-raid, all the way to Durban in South Africa where his Aunt Jane lives. This is something of a late classic from Alexander MacKendrick, a movie in which the central character is a child but which isn't really a children's film, (though children will relate to it), and it's utterly devoid of sentimentality. On route he meets a number of people who both help him and hinter him on his journey and he learns to 'grow up' very quickly. One of the people he meets is Edward G Robinson's old diamond smuggler and in the end it is he who is really Sammy's salvation, (and as ever, Robinson is superb). As Sammy, Fergus McClelland is also superb; MacKendrick is a very fine director of children. Filmed on location in Africa, it is also visually very impressive.

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