Given the plot line, this could easily have been cutesy or mawkish. It isn't, though. Peter Finch is brilliant in his understated playing and the supporting cast is very fine.
Maybe because I've known men estranged from their wives who have taken their children on their quests through life, I was fascinated and very moved. The last half or gets a little busy and the (anti)hero's leaving his daughter with an unknown wanderer is implausible. But Finch holds the hole together brilliantly. And the actress playing his little girl is a natural. She never tries to charm us. Perhaps that is a credit to the director as much as to the performer.
There are simialrities (if memory serves) between this and the later, better known and lauded "Paper Moon." Of the two, I prefer this by a hundred thousand miles.
It is a charmer and a bit of a heart-breaker -- much like the character played by Finch.
Maybe because I've known men estranged from their wives who have taken their children on their quests through life, I was fascinated and very moved. The last half or gets a little busy and the (anti)hero's leaving his daughter with an unknown wanderer is implausible. But Finch holds the hole together brilliantly. And the actress playing his little girl is a natural. She never tries to charm us. Perhaps that is a credit to the director as much as to the performer.
There are simialrities (if memory serves) between this and the later, better known and lauded "Paper Moon." Of the two, I prefer this by a hundred thousand miles.
It is a charmer and a bit of a heart-breaker -- much like the character played by Finch.