Little Fugitive

Amazon.com

Codirected by Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, and Ruth Orkin, and photographed by Engel in New York during the summer of 1952, the film tells the simple story of a 7-year-old Brooklyn boy named Joey (charmingly played by nonactor Richie Andrusco), who flees to Coney Island after a mischievous prank leads Joey to believe he's accidentally killed his older brother Lennie. With six dollars in his pocket, Joey indulges himself with amusement rides and junk food, and as the weekend progresses, Lennie begins an equally adventurous search for his missing kid brother.

Winner of the Silver Lion award at the 1953 Venice Film Festival and Oscar nominee for Best Story, Little Fugitive was inducted into the prestigious National Film Registry in 1997. Making innovative use of a hand-held camera (which impressed Engel's friend Stanley Kubrick, who used the same equipment for his debut feature Fear and Desire), the film favors image over dialogue, and unfolds with timeless and universal appeal. A pleasure from start to finish, Little Fugitive is a little masterpiece that you'll never forget. --Jeff Shannon

Description

Morris Engel's All-American classic. Widely regarded as one of the most influential and enjoyable films of the American independent cinema, "Little Fugitive" is an utterly charming fable that poetically captures the joys and wonders of childhood.

Customer Reviews:

Coney Island is alive!.......2007-09-02

As a person who grew up as a kid in Brooklyn in the fifties and sixties and enjoyed going to Coney Island, this was pure nostalgia. What a delight! But to realize that this film was a such a seminal and pivotal movie to a cinematic style, such as the French New Wave, is an added bonus.

The Little Fugitive.......2007-06-26

This simple, sublime, touching little film became a landmark in independent film-making, winning the Silver Lion Award at Cannes, and influencing what would become the French New Wave with its documentary-like immediacy. Seen today, "Fugitive" evokes a potent nostalgia for the long-ago fifties, with the fabled Coney Island beach and amusement park captured (from a kid-size view) in its prime, with all its wonder intact. Appealing non-actor Andrusco is also transfixing as Joey, our little protagonist. This "Little Fugitive" is definitely worth tracking down.

joey's day at coney island.......2007-02-17

Just wanted to say that this has always been my "favorite" kids film since i first saw it on tv, as i was too young to see it when it came out in 1952. Joey is wonderful in this film about a youngster who flees to coney island after being tricked into thinking he's shot & killed his older brother lenny. With just a few bucks in his pocket he explores all the games & rides & meets 'jay the ponie ride man' who eventually befriends him when lenny shows up searching for his younger brother. This film features natural everyday people + kids who are acting without even trying, so the viewer is put at ease & can enjoy all the mis-adventures that happen to joey during his "day at coney island", like riding the ponies everytime he found bottles to return for deposit. I recomend this film to anyone with young children, as it's an excellent study of boys & how they relate to each other & the pranks that can get them into trouble. Fortunately, this film has a very happy ending, & the best part is that their mom never suspects anything unusual happened while she was away visiting her ill sister. It's a timeless treasure that children of all ages will enjoy! Too bad this film never had a sequel, as more adventures of joey & lenny would have been most welcome!!!

We love this film!.......2007-02-08

This is such a terrific, charming film! My husband recommended it and we had seen it on TV, years ago. It brought back wonderful memories for him of Coney Island, from years and years ago. The story is charming, the acting wonderful. Just a terrific film!

once-upon-a-time .......2006-06-09

I saw this film 15 years ago on cable TV and finally bit the bullet and got the DVD from Amazon this week. It is expensive but I wanted my children to see it. We go to Coney Island every now and then and while it is fun, Coney Island today does not compare to the Coney Island in this film.

Coney Island has had many incarnations, always as an amusement area. And Coney Island in the summer of 1952 is the background to this charming film. In Little Fugitive the Wonder Wheel, Parachute Jump and the Horse Race and more are in their prime. Only the Wonder Wheel is still running today. The Horse Race burned down and the parachute jump tower is a derelict.

And, since the background action is not staged, the people in this film are real. When those folks--teenagers in 1952 and senior citizens today--thought about the next generation, our world is the future they contemplated.

The film transfer on the DVD is excellent. The quality of the fine trailer is not as good.

The commentary by director Morris Engel is a primer on how to make a serious low budget feature, interesting to any film student but also to any film fan.

Engel was also the cameraman. He shot the entire thing on black and white 35mm film using a hand held camera. All of the shooting was silent with the dialog, music and effects added in a studio later. Interestingly, the version of the film seen on TV and on this DVD contains a deleted scene, cut for no good reason at all, as Engel explains.

While writing this I looked on the web to see what happened to Richie Andrusco. I found this instead: when Morris Engel died in 2005 at the age of 86, the New York Times wrote of him as "the New York photographer and filmmaker whose 1953 film, 'The Little Fugitive,' established a model for independent moviemaking that influenced directors like John Cassavetes and François Truffaut..."

Average customer rating:

Little Fugitive (Import)
Director: Ray Ashley , and Morris Engel
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

Import from South Korea
Language: English
Subtitles: Korean
NTSC All Regions
Full Screen

ASIN: B000VZWFPM

Product Description

French director François Truffaut once said, "Our New Wave would never have come into being if it hadn't been for the young Morris Engel, with his fine Little Fugitive." High praise indeed, and as Truffaut observed, this early milestone of American independent filmmaking had a powerful influence on such later French classics as The Red Balloon and Truffaut's own Les Mistons and The 400 Blows. Codirected by Ray Ashley, Morris Engel, and Ruth Orkin, and photographed by Engel in New York during the summer of 1952, the film tells the simple story of a 7-year-old Brooklyn boy named Joey (charmingly played by nonactor Richie Andrusco), who flees to Coney Island after a mischievous prank leads Joey to believe he's accidentally killed his older brother Lennie. With six dollars in his pocket, Joey indulges himself with amusement rides and junk food, and as the weekend progresses, Lennie begins an equally adventurous search for his missing kid brother. Winner of the Silver Lion award at the 1953 Venice Film Festival and Oscar nominee for Best Story, Little Fugitive was inducted into the prestigious National Film Registry in 1997. Making innovative use of a hand-held camera (which impressed Engel's friend Stanley Kubrick, who used the same equipment for his debut feature Fear and Desire), the film favors image over dialogue, and unfolds with timeless and universal appeal. A pleasure from start to finish, Little Fugitive is a little masterpiece that you'll never forget. --Jeff Shannon

DVD:

DVD

DVD