1963 - SAMMY GOING SOUTH, excellent adventure film set in Africa.

Sammy Going South is a very good children's adventure film told from an adult point of view which probably limited it's appeal to a family audience.  This is a film about a child on a trek through Africa to find his Aunt,  his last living relative.  Sammy Going South is also an unusually intelligent film extremely well directed by Alexander MacKendrick who was a very good director with a lot of bad luck.

Had I not been so busy trying to be a wiseguy with my review of True Grit, Sammy Going South would make an excellent comparison of the acting abilities between the two young leads in each of those films.

In True Grit, Hailee Steinfeld gives a perfectly fine performance as the young girl whose father is killed.  She knows her lines, hits her marks and is perfectly acceptable.  But her performance seems cold and mannered.  Steinfeld has all the skill of a seasoned TV soap opera performer, she is competent and knows how to get the job done if not really able to find an emotional core to her performance, reliable and uninspired.
 
The performance of Fergus McClelland as Sammy in Sammy Going South is much more interesting. Throughout the film he comes off as a deeply disturbed child, something that would have resulted from a child who lost his parents in a war.  Clearly Alexander MacKendrick must have worked very carefully with this young boy to achieve this level of believably.  By the end of the film it's probably not unreasonable to assume this is a kid with big emotional problems.
  

Alexander MacKendrick was able to get a real feel for Africa in this film.  Most films about Africa usually make it look like some big grassy plain with a lot of wild animals running around.  Sammy Going South manages to give the viewer a sense of how big this country actually is. 

Also in the cast is the legendary actor Edward G. Robinson as a colorful diamond smuggler.  I was expecting the worst and was prepared to see a character actor really ham it up.  But low and behold Robinson gives a careful controlled performance that doesn't overwhelm the film.  Very impressive. 

118 minutes