LITTLE BOY LOST

US, 1953, 95 minutes, Black and White.
Bing Crosby, Claude Dauphin, Christiane Foucade, Gabrielle Dorziat, Nicole Maurey.
Directed by George Seaton.

Little Boy Lost was a popular film of the early fifties. Bing Crosby has quite a pleasant but strong screen presence and after decades of musicals and comedies he moved into drama in the fifties. His most striking dramatic film was The Country Girl which was also directed by George Seaton. In Little Boy Lost he has a fairly conventional role but does it well and charmingly. The story of war orphans, of course, touched the heart of audiences in the fifties and still has the power to do so now. It is an engaging film and a good study of children, parenthood, what it is to be an orphan.

1. Feeling overtones of the title? The lost boy of the dream of Lisa? The silhouette of the boy during the credits? How did this create atmosphere for the film?

2. Comment on the use of the narration by Bill Wainwright? The use of the flashback technique. How effective?

3. How sympathetic a character was Bill Wainwright? What kind of man was he? His involvement in his work? Radio work? His political attitudes before the war? (How much of Bing Crosby's personality came across in the portrayal?)

4. How did the film use the war and its emotional overtones for its impact?

5. Comment on the build up on Bill's marriage to Lisa. The sequence of her pregnancy and difficult birth. The child and her dream of the little boy lost.

6. What did the film have to say about war and suffering? How war cuts across plans? The impact of Lisa and the baby being trapped in France? Lisa's continuing to sing and work for the Resistance? The emotional impact of her death?

7. How important was Bill's searching for his boy? Why did he search? To find the boy? Thinking that Lisa in some way was still alive? Living up to an image rather than reality?

8. How interestingly did the film portray the fate of war orphans? Tracing their being rescued and taken to orphanages? The role of the grandmother? The sisters at the orphanage?

9. What were your impressions of the Mother Superior? Was she too hard? were her ideas right but did she seem to lack feeling? what was Bill Wainwright's reaction? Was she proved right? Did he realise that she was right? How did Jean respond to the Mother Superior?

10. What were your impressions of Jean? Was he a sympathetic little boy? Confirm the Superior's remarks about parents wanting the most intelligent and the best children? The impact of Jean's receiving gifts from Bill? Jean's remembering and his failing to remember? How important was it that the grandmother had told him to remember?

11. The importance of the sequence where Pierre talks to Bill and makes him confront the truth? How he was reliving the past and had not truly buried Lisa? The importance of Pierre's reading the account of Lisa's death?

12. Was the finale too contrived, especially about the dog and Jean's remembering? How important was it that Bill had made a decision at the station? That he wasn't just returning for sentimental reasons? What was the final impact of this film? How heart-warming? How genuinely feeling? was it in any way sentimental? What values was it in favour of?