User Reviews

I've just watched this film for the first time yesterday and it finally solved a 53-year old mystery. I was 9 when it was made and lived over a row of shops in Hornchurch Road, Ernesettle (in Plymouth). One day that summer one end of the arcade was blocked off and loads of film equipment, lighting etc placed at the entrance to the Co-op - this was for the sequence near the beginning when Tom and Gus are outside a supermarket looking into the store with Tom shouting "run for your life!" when Gus mentions being caught for shoplifting. I've wondered since that time what film was being shot - now I finally know! Another odd coincidence, Gus's large family home near Honicknowle Green is now an old peoples home which I actually visited with a puppy during his training classes being held a stones throw away in Butt Road. All the pups and their owners visited the home to introduce them to strangers ie the residents. Needless to say, it looks quite different now but the big stone boundary wall is still there.

Little seen since it's fleeting original release, Desmond Davis' follow-up to 'The Girl with Green Eyes' vividly evokes both the strange world of childhood and that long-vanished era when films were in black & white, call boxes had a button B, budgerigars sold for a pound, water pistols for a shilling and comics only cost 4d.

Us in the UK are again thankful to the Talking Pictures channel for showing this little gem.

The director is of course well-known for "I Was Happy Here" and "Girl with Green Eyes"; the cast includes Rupert Davies, Brenda Bruce, Maurice Denham and the always reliable Bill Marlowe (who made me wince in the scene where he is assisting in some farmyard castrations!). Special mention to Robert Duncan who plays the 7-Y-O Uncle of the story starting to understand "life" a little too early for his years.

Surely this is one of the unsung realistic depictions of childhood? I personally found a bit upsetting (and reminding) the merciless, cruel bullying of the children in their unceasing chanting-but, oh, how so true.

Great to see so many cap guns and the kids let loose all day-very accurate mirror of those postwar times!

I would put this up there with "Kes" as an accurate portrayal of childhood.

I would agree with other reviews that there is a lot of charm in a film which portrays the simple, easy-going childhood of the mid-'60s, and the acting of the children is fine. John Moulder-Brown is always worth ewatching, and he makes a good gang bully here. BUT there are annoyances: the "Gus is an uncle" chant goes on too long and in too many scenes. The kids would have tired of it as the summer hols wore on. I didn't think the interpolated action from comics quite worked, nor the applied soundtrack of real fire-arms when the cap-gun games were taking place. Most improbable was that none of the kids (or their parents) had West Country accents, given the Devon settings. And that goof? The shop-keeper's name is Ream, but on the brass plate of his coffin the name is spelt Reams.

There's something really quite authentic about the efforts here from "Gus" (Robert Duncan) and his nephew "Tom" (Christoper Ariss). "Gus" is but seven years old, and "Tom" the young son of his elder sister. When the younger lad comes to live with them for the holidays, and attends the same school, it causes quite some upset for the boys and proves a cause of merriment for their teasing contemporaries who rapidly manage to imbue the word "uncle" with some pretty nasty and mischievous connotations - egged on by a manipulative "Jamie" (John Moulder-Brown). It's probably twenty minutes too long, this film, but it is still quite an effective observation of just how children interact with each other. Some are kind and friendly; others knowingly provocative and cruel, others completely indifferent. Many are fickle and most unaware of the implications of their teasing and taunting. The two boys deliver their characters engagingly as we observe a few weeks of a process called "growing up" and they are well supported by the grown ups - Rupert Davies, Brenda Bruce and the sister/mother role of Ann Lynn. Every parent has their own way of rearing their child - this is quite an interesting look at how they, and their children's behaviour, contrast.

This is one of the most charming films about childhood which has ever been made. It has never been released on video or DVD and has never previously been reviewed on IMDb, presumably because no one has seen it for nearly half a century. I obtained a DVD of an off-the-air recording which must have been made in the 1970s. The film was co-produced and directed by Desmond Davis, between his films GIRL WITH GREEN EYES (1964) and I WAS HAPPY HERE (1966, see my review). All three of these films are true masterpieces of cinema. One of the reasons for the success of these films is the inspired camera work of Manny Wynn, who was cinematographer on only 11 films before dying in 1975, only 11 years after his first film, GIRL WITH GREEN EYES and 18 years after he commenced his career as focus puller in 1957. No information is recorded concerning his age, but he must have died very early. He was a master of inspired hand-held camera work and dynamic shots, with some unusual framing. In this film, the sequence of little Gus wandering forlornly with a plate of sandwiches through a crowd of oblivious grownups at a party is brilliantly done to stress Gus's view of things, shooting both up and from above to stress the differences in height, perspective, and size. The 'uncle' of the title is a seven year-old boy named Gus, who is the uncle of another seven year-old boy named Tom because Gus was a late addition to the family, being about twenty years younger than his sister. Gus's father is gently played by Rupert Davies, forever remembered as Inspector Maigret. Gus is played by a perfectly delightful little boy named Robert Duncan, who was a child actor in five films between 1961 and 1969 and then vanished, with no further information recorded about him. The year after this he played the young Tsarevitch in RASPUTIN (1966). This film exquisitely portrays the total separation and lack of comprehension between the world of adults and the world of children. This film is based on the novel THE UNCLE by Margaret Abrams (her second novel, published 1962), who did the screenplay jointly with Davis. The script is as inspired as the film. The story is really the story of Gus, of his loneliness and his attempts to learn abut life. He receives very little help from the adults, and he is so isolated from his playmates that he considers the nearby owner of a small sweet shop, Mr. Ream, 'my best friend'. He is devastated when Mr. Ream dies in his sleep of heart trouble, and insists on attending his funeral, which is a sombre affair where Gus thoughtfully watches the coffin being lowered into the ground and comes to terms with mortality, though not without tactfully asking his own father afterwards: 'How do you feel?', worrying whether he too might suddenly die. Gus often plays with a gang of local children, but they taunt and tease him about being an uncle at the age of only seven, and say it is 'indecent'. They go around chanting maliciously: 'Gus is an uncle!' as if nothing could be more shameful. Gus's nephew of the same age as himself is an out-of-control and rather violent boy who crashes into everything and smashes things on purpose, punches Gus in the face, and behaves without restraint because of having feeble parents. Gus is more thoughtful and meditative. He takes refuge in a large abandoned house, where he carries his budgie in a cage, a book, some food, and dozes in an abandoned armchair while he worries about things. He does this throughout most of the summer, becoming increasingly alienated from the other children, whom he joins however whenever there are huge 'combats' modeled on cowboys. Never has such an intense duel of cap pistols been filmed before or since, and Davies accentuates the juvenile perception of the playing by overlaying a sound track taken from a cowboy film, with real guns and ricochets resounding very loudly indeed. This has an excellent evocative effect. As with I WAS HAPPY HERE, Davies includes many closeup cutaways showing details of things, in this film the concentration being on the perfect time capsule of Mr. Ream's sweet shop, with all of its little signs and quaint offerings to appeal to children. Anyone interested in the decline of civilization and the decadence of our contemporary world might care to contrast the way children are treated today (suffocated with excessive attention and turned into spoilt brats, held prisoners in their houses and terrified of going onto the lawn or the street lest some unimaginable fate befall them) and the careless disregard shown towards them by the adults in this film. The parents think nothing of dropping their children on suburban street corners alone, or leaving them in the house for hours unattended, permitting them also to wander around for miles at random, without any fears or neuroses about it. In other words, the children in this film are as free-ranging as the best organic chickens, and no yolks are broken. Alas, seeing films about a saner world like this brings home how insane a world we now all inhabit. This film is a classic, and all children should see it, if only to learn how to be children. All parents should see it, if only to be shamed for their decadent neuroses. And all cinema lovers should see it because it is wonderful. But possibly there is a European Union directive which would prohibit people from watching this film, or at least the Health and Safety Executive would ban it, since if its message were to be taken to heart, it might cost many of them their ridiculous jobs and the perverse culture of fear which dominates our lives today might be slightly dissipated.

Those who love movies entered at major film festivals will love it! An art house movie through and through! It only looks like it was made for kiddies, as it features a 7 year old wondering about the world around him. It is about personal discovery, chuksren and grown-ups, dealing with bullying, love, one's place in the society, urban vs ryral and so many other things children begin to get at that age.

A masterful cinematography throughout only helps lift the movie to a higher level. A word of caution though - if you're seeking entertainment, skip this one. Plenty of contemplative moments, that fun-seekers will find dull.

I watched this film with my Mrs this afternoon and we were both captivated with the performances and the perfect dramatisation of a 60's childhood we could both closely identify with. A young boy with a loving family going through trials and tribulations that many children would have lived through in that time period. A carefree attitude to perceived dangers which I feel is essential to emotional development, illustrating why children should be given more freedom away from their parents. Sadly today too many are smothered by their parents pampering attitudes and technological distractions as alluded to by the earlier review. It's basically a beautifully photographed record of what I consider to be an ideal time and place to grow up in - Well adjusted adults who have taught their offspring good moral values and will talk to them in a mature manner. Of course there are the aggressive and brutal children who everyone has probably come across when they were young and they are shown bullying and taunting their more sensitive peers - doing what a lot of children did, but it ultimately leaves you with a warm glow thankful that you experienced a time when the world was a caring and nice place to be.