Child's Play (1954) User Reviews

A lovely piece of nostalgia

[fostrhod · 5/10 · 13 November 2019]

Lovely piece of nostalgia. Child's play depicts a Britain of long summers and cricket on the village green. If only kids were like this today, if only Britain was like this.

Highly recommended for its innocence

Our Gang in the Atomic Age

[boblipton · 5/10 · 29 August 2017]

There's a bit of satire about atomic research and the official secrets in CHILD'S PLAY, but it's mostly about a gang of kids in a small English village who invent atomic popcorn. It has a silly and confusing air, told as it is, by the leader of the gang, Christopher Beeny, and there's a rough attempt to emulate Hal Roach's Our Gang series in post-war Britain. However, despite some silly moments and a fine, mildly daft performance by Mona Washbourne as the children's collaborator and saleswoman, it is far too scattered to ever quite gel into something.

The director is Margaret Thomson, a lady who began her career directing informational shorts for the Department of Agriculture, and who later became a specialist in writing and directing children's movies. A couple of later credits as "children's coach" in movies like THE LITTLE KIDNAPPERS indicate that she was good at getting performances out of the young 'uns. While Master Beeny has had a good career, and Anneke Willis also -- she had a good run as a companion on DOCTOR WHO -- most of the children's careers seems to have been limited to this one movie.

Saturday Morning Fare

[malcolmgsw · 6/10 · 14 September 2019]

The sort of film that would be shown at children's matinees on Saturday.It is actually quite entertaining.The director has manage to obtain good performances from the children.

Middling

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 17 September 2019]

CHILD'S PLAY is a blatant British spin-off from the LITTLE RASCALS series, in which an all-child gang play with scientific experiments and run rings around the adults in their lives. I found it more like a proto Children's Film Foundation movie, but it somehow lacks the charm of the films in that franchise. This one has fun dialogue and sees atomic energy being used in a novel way, and the satirical swipes at the Cold War are quite amusing. But the lack of a decent plot hurts it somewhat and it does feel very middling throughout. Keep an eye out for a very youthful Peter Sallis in one of his earlier roles (as a delivery driver).

My Childhood (I Wish!)

[TondaCoolwal · 9/10 · 2 August 2019]

Deliciously enjoyable by people of a certain age, like me; Child's Play lacks any credibility or resemblance to reality whatsoever , but is totally watchable. One is again reminded of Children's Film Foundation movies in which the kids effortessly and continuously outwit the adults . Here a young brainbox, wearing trademark specs, is sent an atomic chemistry set by his scientist father. In an attempt to gain revenge on the local bobby the kids contrive to set off a minor atomic explosion. However, following some soul-searching they decide that using atomic power to create things rather than cause explosions is much more worthwhile. They create Bang Corn an improvement on popcorn and, with the help of the local shopkeeper Miss Gossett, put it on the market with great success. In the meantime the scientists at the local research establishment are perturbed that the children have beaten them to a significant breakthrough. The authorities are called in, but eventually the process fails when the magic ingredient, a piece of volcanic rock from Krakatoa, runs out. As ever, with films of this vintage, you can chuckle at the non-PC activities. The adults smoke like chimneys, the kids readily obtain the ingredients to make gunpowder and corporal punishment and clips around the ear are administered liberally. I also understand that during the 1950s a chemistry set containing radioactive material was actually marketed for a while. Yeah, we all know better now. But life isn't half so much fun!

The Atomic Age

[richardchatten · 8/10 · 10 August 2020]

Both a charmingly old-fashioned period piece with a game cast (including two child actors - Christopher Beeny and Anneke Wills - who later had adult careers) beautifully shot on location by Denny Densham in the English countryside, and an extraordinary relic of the period between 'Seven Days to Noon' (and released the year the British government started work on building it's own H-Bomb) and the formation of the CND, with Atom Bombs treated as exciting toys rather than harbingers of the end of the world.

Anybody who thinks the British public were unaware of the Atomic Bomb will find themselves partially disabused of that idea by this extraordinary Group Three production directed by a woman in which the kids talk about little else without having the first notion of how destructive Atom Bombs actually were, or how dangerous radiation really was; and used a piece of rock from Krakatoa to build their bomb the way Dan O'Herlihy employed slivers from Stonehenge thirty years later to slaughter the youth of America in 'Season of the Witch'.

An amusing tale well told.

[plan99 · 8/10 · 27 August 2023]

A fantasy/sci-fi film and who would not have wanted to be in a gang like this in the 1950s in the UK, I certainly would have, I was in a gang of sorts but we didn't have a gang but hut or exciting adventures like this lot.

The vivid imagination of the main boy character in central to the film and all of the child actors are great even the very young girl.

This must have been very appealing to a young audience in 1954 but I failed to achieve as much as they did here with my chemistry set, purple fingers from potassium permanganate was my best effort.

Worth being recommended to youngster now to see what they missed out on as they now spend most of their time doing dumb things with a smart phone.