Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

So much average

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

Italian boy, not only orphaned but apparently nameless, stows away with a group of too-chummy American GIs sailing for New York City; soon, little mush-mouthed 'Dondi'--as his soldier buddies have been instructed to call him--gets lost in the crowd and attaches himself to a con artist and an orphaned dog. Screenwriters Gus Edson and Irwin Hasen, basing their characters on the not-too-popular comic strip, certainly leave family audiences orphaned with this ridiculous treacle, full of artificial hugs and kisses. It's like being suffocated with valentines. David Kory is an indisputably terrible child actor...but to be fair, nobody in this cast comes out looking particularly good. Producer-director Albert Zugsmith cannot stage the simplest comedic gag without turning the principals on-screen into dummies. Patti Page, in adoptive-mommy mode, probably fares the best; she sings a hot version of "Jingle Bells" over the opening credits (was Zugsmith hoping his film would become a holiday perennial?) and manages to make conversation with Kory, which is amazing since I couldn't understand a word the kid was saying. A seat-numbing excuse for a kiddie matinée. * from ****

...and do NOT go looking for Dondi to share with your kids. I've got 'em all, kids, four hundred titles of the vilest filth and degradation ever burned into film. I've got Alien Private Eye, three different copies of Skidoo, Puffing Your Profits with Balloons, and two different releases of Night of Horror. Dondi, Chairman of the Board, and The Misery Brothers are the only three movies I own that neither I nor any of my fellow Stinker Ninjas can sit through in one shot. Yeah. It's that bad. Remember, you can't blame the kid for the horrifying lines, the brain-damaged phrasing, or the ketchup-on-pizza accent: this is 1000% on the head of Zugsmith, unless Gus Edson contributed anything but the title to earn his writer's credit. Ever see Sex Kittens Go to College? There's that same sickening feeling about ten minutes in, that there is no God, no hope, and that the balance of the universe can be restored only by deep-frying Al Zugsmith's carcass like a Thanksgiving turkey on the deck of a double-wide for all eternity. Gak, yuk ptooey, and Gah! Prunes!Now, several commenters have mentioned that this isn't available on VHS or DVD. There's one way to find out for sure: google the name of the movie and the IMDb URL for Dondi. Oh, and to save Google money, enclose the name Dondi and that IMDb URL for Dondi in quotes, like, "Dondi www.imdb.com/title/tt0054816/". Them electrons is expensive.Anyway, this way you'll know for sure.

Like some of the other post-WW2 baby boomers who commented, I remember Dondi in our morning paper in the 1950s and 60s. The strip had some kind of visual appeal--even though I wasn't old enough to follow a story strip, I kept giving it a look. The movie came out when I was 9 or 10, and because I actually recognized its subject matter, I went to the Paramount or State theater in downtown Burlington NC and tried to watch it. But even at that tender age I was aware I was watching a dreadful turkey of a movie. My only pleasant association with the subject thereafter was when Mad Magazine ran a calendar that featured a "Kick Dondi in the Teeth Day."

The summary line is, of course, intended to parody David Kory's very strange use of language in this film, but I can't shake myself of the idea that the pinhead who first proposed this as a project spoke of it in like glowing words.The comic strip was okay for what it was. But trying to make a movie out of it? Watching this is a stomach-turner to be sure. The whole syrupy lovableness bit is nauseating, and I've heard stories of kids who watched this when it first came out having squirmed with embarrassment at it, which is pretty painful when you consider how undemanding kids usually are when it comes to kid-friendly movies. Even worse are the stale, unfunny jokes.A sequel was planned, but thankfully it went nowhere. David Kory couldn't act, but even worse is the fact that his director couldn't, evidently, do his own job either.