The kids & I have a "thing." When Dad's out of town, we pop corn and rent a movie --their choice, but I get (and liberally apply) a veto. So a week or so ago we ended up with Escape To Witch Mountain, a Disney chestnut from my youth. I didn't remember much about it, except that I have a very clear memory of seeing it at the Andrews Air Force Base theater with a school chum.
It ain't great film-making --just boilerplate kids' quest stuff. But it's charming enough for the 5-10 set.
Two aspects of the film are striking. First, the little hero and heroine are just as clever at outwitting adults as their contemporary counterparts --yet they do so in an utterly innocent way. They're respectful, wholesome and capable of wonder --none of the sarcastic, sexually aware, detached nihilism that poisons most "family fare" these days (even when they leave the overt sex and violence out). In the requisite slapstick scenes, there's no resorting to potty jokes. I can't recall when I last saw a post-1980 movie (or tv show for that matter) that didn't include a potty scene.
Secondly, a key scene in the climax of the movie comes when the kids --orphaned extra-terrestrials trying to rendezvous with their own people-- use their unique powers to escape a rural country sheriff and his men. The townspeople determine the kids are witches and round up a posse to "git 'em." (This sets up a classic Disney chase scene --every kid movie used to have to have one. This one has a flying Winnebago and an upside-down helicopter; much giggling ensued).
I have distinct memories of finding this (the witch-hunt, not the chase) preposterous even as a child --the local yokels were a bit too yokel-ly to believe even then-- but think about it. Is it at all conceivable that societal disapproval of witchcraft could be a plot element in a movie today? (I mean, other than a movie in which the backwards, narrow-minded, rigid, hypocritical and vicious Christian gets just comeuppance from the warm, open Wiccan with the heart of gold?)
As I say, it's not great film-making, but it has the great virtue of being a kid movie that's actually pitched to kids --and not to their oversexed babysitters.. Watch it and compare the kids to any children in any movie or sitcom today, and you'll immediately see the problem with contemporary kid flicks.
