Review for Sammy Going South

8 / 10

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Released in the US as 'A Boy Ten Feet Tall', 'Sammy Going South' is another of those films that, for some, will be of considerable importance. As a children's film full of tragedy, darkness and (eventually) hope, it ranks alongside potent kids classics like 'Whistle Down the Wind' or 'Oliver' for its incredible effect on its legions of fans, most of whom will have been born at the fag end of the 1950's. Unreleased on DVD until now, those who have scoured EBay for overpriced off-air recordings can at last re-visit the film to see if it is as potent and powerful a journey as recalled, when seen through the eyes of an adult.

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What struck me about seeing this barely remembered film again after many years, and only the haziest recollection of it, was just how dark it was. It seems almost relentlessly cruel, and there are many moments in the film where there is a deliberate but unspoken possibility that not all those who help Sammy on his quest have the best intentions. His journey across the desert, for example, is almost unbearably cruel. As an adult viewing the film, I was suddenly aware of a dark frisson that pulls into question the motives of his guide. There is a moment where the man offers Sammy a head-dress, rather like a ladies and suggests he wears it. The assumption is that he is helping Sammy to protect himself from the ravages of the sun, and that was probably the intent, but I am in no doubt that Director Sandy MacKendrick had intended to add this level of ambiguity which gives the film a queasy sense of unease from the outset. You're never quite sure of what is going on, or even of character's motives.

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But I am clearly ahead of myself. I haven't even told you what the film is about yet.

The movie starts somewhere in tumultuous North Africa where his parents are part of the 'collateral damage' following a port invasion and Sammy finds himself suddenly horribly alone.

So Sammy sets out to find a distant relative, mentioned by his Mother before the attack, who resides in SA, some 5000 miles across the desert in Durban.

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Somehow he manages to escape from the bullying clutches of some local lads and then sets out on his impossible journey, soon attaching himself to a nomad guide who takes him part way before succumbing to a dreadful accident which at first blinds him and then kills him. He staggers amongst the tourist section of some ancient monuments at the edge of the desert and is 'rescued' by a wealthy tourist (Constance Cummings). With no wish to be returned back to Port Said, Sammy soon befriends an old diamond smuggler (Edward G Robinson), a curmudgeonus cynic who at first seems an unlikely benefactor for Sammy but who gets on with him famously. At one point Sammy even rescues the old man's life, showing how quickly Sammy has grown up from the timid ten year old that set off on then journey originally. Sammy is eventually reunited with his Aunt and discovers that the old man has left him everything.

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It's all frighteningly serious with little if any of Kendrick's trademark humour (Whiskey Galore!, The Man in White Suit and The Ladykillers for example) and is a film sometimes seen as typical of his later films like 'A High Wind in Jamaica' and 'Mandy'.

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Whilst many in the film are a little earnest to be taken seriously (Harry H Corbett for one), Edward G Robinson and the boy (Fergus McLelland) were quite brilliant in their respective roles.

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The picture quality is fine, if a little grainy and the mono audio is adequate.

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Extra features include an interview with Sammy (Fergus McLelland), who has growed up nicely and is making a living doing corporate voice-training.
 There's also a brief interview with James Mangold, a colleague and friend of Director Alexander Mackendrick's.

Certainly a movie worth a punt if you remember this with any degree of nostalgia. I wonder if its original potency will still have an effect after all these years, I suspect it will.

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Your Opinions and Comments

Sammy Going South is not really as ambiguous as it seems regarding the relationship between Sammy and the Syrian peddlar. The film ran into censorship problems in 1963 with the British Board of Film Censors, who asked for a certain scenes involving Sammy and the Syrian to be reduced. The producers were after a "U" certificate for the film and so had to comply. In the original version, the Syrian comes across Sammy laying on a sand dune in the middle of the Egyptian desert on the first night of the boy's journey south. The Syrian is sexually attracted to Sammy and was shown lusting after him and trying to have his way with him. After all, alone in the middle of the desert with a ten year old orphaned English boy…who would ever know what he did with him…or even care?

However, two small parts of the supposedly cut scenes did make it to the final release print. In one, the Syrian is kneeling before the standing Sammy and is quite plainly and excitedly ogling the front of Sammy's khaki bush shorts, before feeling Sammy's right leg and grabbing hold of Sammy's right wrist and trying to drag the boy down onto the sand with him, while Sammy wriggles free from his grasp. The impression is given that Sammy knows what the Syrian wants them to do together, but that he isn't game for it. In the second scene, left in the film, the Syrian looks longingly at Sammy and then covers the bottom half of Sammy's face with the bottom of the boy's head dress and says something softly to him in Arabic, at which point Sammy stands up and shouts at him.

According to Fergus McClelland, Sandy Mackendrick would go over a scene with him before filming it and discuss the situation Sammy was in and tell him what, in his opinion, Sammy would be feeling at that particular point and then Fergus would act it out in front of the camera. This being the case, it's not hard to imagine, regarding the Sammy and the Syrian scenes, Mackendrick discussing with Fergus the fact that at this point, Sammy has just lost his home and his parents and all those Egyptians he believed were his friends and he is very upset and still in shock when he is found by the Syrian. Because of this, how would Sammy react when the Syrian made advances towards him? Quite possibly by letting the Syrian know in no uncertain terms that he wanted none of it and this is the way Fergus played the scenes.

It's doubtful that cinema audiences in 1963 would have read anything into these scenes as they watched them back then...although I certainly did when I ran the film as a sixteen years old in those days. It's quite clear that Mackendrick was trying to show with these scenes that the dangers Sammy faced on his trek south came from more than just scorpions; snakes and lions.

I understand that the DVD release will contain the 119 minutes cut (114 minutes at PAL running speed), as the original 129 minutes release version couldn't be found by Optimum even after an extensive search. I, of course, ran the complete version in 1963 and as far as I remember, the Sammy and the Syrian scenes were a lot longer in the full version than in the edited version that has been shown on television in the UK and from which I understand the new DVD release has been taken.
posted by David Rayner on 25/6/2010 13:37
It's a shame when original cuts are lost like that, though if probably even found would require a level of restoration that wouldn't be justified by sales of it. :/

Interesting clarification of the subject matter, thanks!
posted by RJS on 26/6/2010 13:23
Thanks David. That's pretty illuminating ...and on reflection accounts for Sammy's otherwise out of character behaviour with regard to this 'saviour' and 'guardian'. (BTW - for some reason I was sent 2 x check discs. If you haven't already purchased a copy, PM me and I'll fwd one on...and maybe you could add another review?
posted by Stuart McLean on 26/6/2010 14:17
Hi, Stuart, Thanks for your very kind offer, but I pre-ordered a copy of the DVD on amazon UK months ago and I had an email from them today (June 26th, 2010) to say they had sent it to me and for me to expect it on Monday. I am really looking forward to seeing it again in full CinemaScope width after all these forty-seven years. A great pity they haven't included the original trailer though, as it would have been very interesting to be reminded of how the film was pitched when it was first released.  Sometime between the original release in 1963 and its first showing on television on BBC2 at Christmas, 1970, someone, somewhere and for reasons now lost in the mists of time, cut ten minutes out of the film and it's this cut version that is on the DVD. Although unless you actually knew this in advance, you probably won't notice that anything is missing. The Americans, however, fared worse, as the version released there (but not until 1965 as A Boy Ten Feet Tall) was severely cut to 84 minutes, which must have played havoc with the narrative.
posted by David Rayner on 26/6/2010 14:57
Well, I just uploaded my own review of Sammy Going South, but I can't find any way to include in it frame captures from the DVD as Stuart has done in his above review.
posted by David Rayner on 3/7/2010 17:00
The way to do it is, when you know where you want to insert an image, make sure there is a double line break and, when the cursor is flashing on the bottom of the two, click on the picture of the tree on the top bar, then click 'browse', scroll down to the picture you want, then select 'general' then on 'medium' and then 'centre'.

See if that helps.
posted by David Beckett on 3/7/2010 18:34
Many Thanks, David. I've just managed to do it with your help and with the help of someone else on here who contacted me. I have done the synopses carefully, so as not to give away the ending to those who have never seen this classic film.
posted by David Rayner on 3/7/2010 19:20