Home | Movies By Year | Movies from 1952
The Wonder Kid
Buy The Wonder Kid now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the movie. And once you've experienced the movie, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
'The Wonder Kid' is a 1952 British drama film directed by Karl Hartl and starring Bobby Henrey, Elwyn Brook-Jones and Oskar Werner. The film was completed in 1950, premiered in Europe in January 1951 but was not given a full release in Britain for a further year.
Plot
Sebastian Giro is a ten-year-old French boy and child musical prodigy found in an orphanage by Mr Gorik (Elwyn Brook-Jones) who exploits the youngsters talent as a classical pianist and turns him into an international celebrity. He even tells everyone that the boy is only seven years old to make the boy wonders talent seem all the more remarkable.
But Gorik is also a crook who embezzles the takings so that he has almost all the money and Sebastian gets hardly any. Coupled with that, Gorik wont allow Sebastian to enjoy the simple pleasures of being a little boy, like playing with other boys or even reading comic books, because, when Sebastian isnt performing, Gorik isnt making any money out of him. He works the over tired boy like a slave who must continually practice on the piano.
Sebastians elderly English governess, Miss Frisbie (Muriel Aked) is very concerned about the boy and confronts Gorik about his crooked activities. But he dismisses her from her post. Miss Frisbie then pays a gang of crooks to "kidnap" Sebastian and take him to stay in a remote lodge in the Austrian Tyrol, where the boy has never been so free and happy and Gorik wont get him back until hes paid over a huge ransom which is, in effect, all the money he has stolen from the boy.[https://web.archive.org/web/20090113212316/http://ftvdb.bfi.org.uk/sift/title/58566 'The Wonder Kid'] at BFI
Production
'The Wonder Kid' was filmed on location in Austria and at Isleworth Studios in England in late 1949 and early 1950, but not released until 1952. The film's sets were designed by the art directors Joseph Bato and Werner Schlichting.
Cast
* Bobby Henrey as Sebastian Giro
* Elwyn Brook-Jones as Mr. Gorik
* Muriel Aked as Miss Frisbie
* Oskar Werner as Rudi
* Robert Shackleton as Rocks Cooley
* Christa Winter as Anni
* Sebastian Cabot as Pizzo
* Klaus Birsch as Nik
* Paul Hardtmuth as Professor Bindl
* June Elvin as Miss Kirsch
References
Buy The Wonder Kid now from Amazon
<-- Return to movies from 1952