Please don't spend money on this.

Good concept, poorly executed.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

My Father took me to this movie at the old Rialto Theatre in Pasadena. It horrified me, but in a good way. The opening scene shows a Woman complaining to her Husband that She doesn't want to do something. The photography focuses however on a small boy, lying on the floor playing with toys. His ears prick up when he realizes that She (we later realize this is his Mother) is talking about sending him away. Seconds later an air raid siren sounds. The Boy runs downstairs to follow the commotion. Pandamonium reigns in the streets. He literally has to dive for cover after being strafed by enemy planes.(Spoiler coming up) When he returns to his apartment, He finds both his Parents dead in the rubble of what used to be his childhood home. The sequence is reminiscent of Luke finding his Uncle Owen and Aunt Baru dead in Star Wars. It's a huge emotional moment in both films, and in the lives of two young human beings.This is not a movie for children. It's a movie for Men reminiscing about when the tumultuous boundaries of their childhood were broken. Excellent movie, powerful and under rated. I also cannot seem to find this on DVD anywhere. I hope it comes on bluray some day.

Found this little gem on DVD via Amzon.co.uk.The film is about a little boy (excellently played by a very young Fergus MacClelland), whose British parents die under a British bombing of Port Said during the Suez crisis, and he is left to his own devices to, if possible, get to and to find his aunt in Durban, near the other end of the African continent. After many adventures he gets there, involving life and death, but on his way there he meets many people, including an old diamond smuggler, excellently played by Edward G. Robinson, at that time around 70 years old, and doing his very best of acting. The supporting cast is equally good, by the way. The masterful director is the man who made British classics like 'The Guns of Navarone', 'Lady Killers', and 'The Man in the White Suit', Alexander MacKendrick.On the DVD there is an excellent interview with the lead actor, Fergus MacClelland (now with the Royal Shakespeare Company), and with an American director, who had had MacKendrick as teacher in directing.Well worth watching both! You learn that originally the film was over three hours long, but the released copy is just under two hours!

I recall seeing this movie for the first time on TV back in the mid-70s when it went by a different title (possibly for US viewers), "A Boy 10 Feet Tall". Sadly I have only see this film one other time back in the late 80s. I too was drawn in by this film an it's youthful wanderer determined to make his own way from Egypt to South Africa despite all of the hardships involved. I credit this film in part in helping to pique my interest in travel and the world around me, especially Africa. It's too bad that a DVD or VHS version of this film were never officially released. This is one the films that remain on my 'Must Have' list.

I showed this film ( U.S. version titled "A Boy Ten Feet Tall")at the base theater while stationed with the U.S. Navy in Asmara, Eritrea in 1973 and I thought it was one of Edward G. Robinson's finest. The basic premise of the movie, as I recall after all these years, is a boy is orphaned during an air raid in Egypt and then compelled to live with a foster parent. Having heard that he had an aunt living in South Africa he ran away from the foster parent and set out on his own to South Africa. The story tracks him through many adventures on his way and the best was when he came upon a diamond smuggler, Edward G. Robinson, who eventually befriends the boy and takes him under his wing. Of course this 'soft' gesture eventually leads to Edward G's demise and capture by authorities but he was able to instill a keen sense of responsibility and independence in the boy during their time together. The boy travels further across Africa and does eventually turn up at his Aunt's doorstep. I searched for this movie for years but no one seems to have heard of it. I think it would be a great candidate for a re-release or to come out on DVD.