The Boy Who Turned Yellow

This simple children's film, made as a way of educating kids through "fun" means, is a small-scale, very dated piece of fluff that would have long ago been lost to cinema history if not for one very crucial element -- it was the final pairing of one of film's finest partnerships, director Michael Powell and writer Emeric Pressburger. After a string of cinematic marvels in the 1940s (including The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus, The Red Shoes, and A Matter Of Life And Death), their fortunes faded. They kept up their partnership as The Archers until 1957, made one more film together in the mid-60s (They're A Weird Mob, which is probably the least seen and most elusive of all their work), and then surprisingly churned this out in 1972. Anyone hoping for a hint of the old magic will be disappointed. This is weak on all fronts, an odd and unhappy concoction from a pair of geniuses who were famed for their innovation and creativity. Fans will want to catch it anyway, just to be able to say they've seen it, but really this is a very minor PS to a fabulous career which had long since hit its peak.

I'm really curious about the backstory to this. Michael Powell, who had been effectively exiled from the British film industry, went to Australia, made two movies, and came back to make one final film with his long-term creative partner, Emeric Pressburger, and it's this weird, children's thing that supposed to be teaching kids about electricity? It's hard to say, this thing is so stuffed with events that have nothing to do with electricity and how it works, and its such a sugar rush of those events without any real grounding in, well, any kind of storytelling convention that I wonder if Pressburger was having a stroke while writing it.

John (Mark Dightam) is a schoolboy whose class takes a trip to the Tower of London. He brings along his pet mouse Alice and promptly loses her on the tour. Convinced to go back to school by his friend Munro (Lem Dobbs) and return later to find Alice (what?). While in class, listening to a lecture about how electricity works by his teacher (Laurence Carter), John falls asleep. Returning home from school, though, on the Underground, he and the entire subway car he's in turn yellow inexplicably. It's an accident caused by the falling of an electrical alien named Nick (Robert Eddison). John has to show Nick around the electrical world of his living room after which Nick takes John into the electrical currents from the television to try and get into the Tower and find Alice.

I mean, this is a mess. Is it about learning about electricity? If it is, what's with this nonsense about a boy traveling through electrical circuits to jump out of a television in the Tower of London? Is it about the rescue of a mouse? Well, then what's with all the electrical stuff? If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say that neither Powell nor Pressburger had any clue how to appeal to the young of the early 70s, and just kind of threw a random electrically-themed adventure together as their one last hurrah.

The mechanics of how John uses his other mouse, Father Christmas, to try and locate Alice are time-wasting and kind of dull, probably supposed to be cute. The film gets weird when John gets caught by the Beefeaters, Nick can't intervene because he's just a creature of energy that only yellow people can see and hear, so Nick decides to go and get Munro to help. Except...Munro doesn't do anything? John gets himself out of his execution (what?) by asking for a last minute exposure to television that Nick then uses to transport John out (what? Were there no light sockets nearby at any other point?).

And, of course, it's all a dream which seems to wave away the absolute insanity of the plotting, except everything is presented more like a straight boys' adventure than something dream-like, so it doesn't work like a film that does do dream-logic. It just feels random. Could that work for a children's audience? I suppose, but it didn't work for me.

There's not a whole lot to talk about here. It's all plot with some smattering of lecture about how electricity works in a classroom setting. It doesn't work. It's too random, too unfocused, and too dull. The only real joys are in the production design where we get flashes of the formalism that had defined the Archer's best and most well-known work through the 40s, in particular the quick time we spend in that yellow subway car.

I mean, this is not good. It's a last gasp of creative energy without real purpose or direction. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it's mostly just kind of weirdly unengaging.

The last collaboration of director Michael Powell and writer Emeric Pressburger, this film featurette was made in 1972 for the Children's Film Foundation. On a school outing to the Tower of London schoolboy John Saunders (Mark Dightam) loses his pregnant pet white mouse Alice. On the way home on the train he turns yellow, along with the whole train, in a surrealistic moment. Making friends with an electronic alien called Nick - who he finds in his television, who lives on electricity, and who is yellow, wears a pair of skis and has a flashing light on his head - the pair travel at the 'speed of electricity' via television sets to the Tower of London to try and find Alice. Partly shot on location in Hampstead, and of course the Tower of London, this is a fast paced, modest, surreal, occasionally clumsy seeming whimsical tale (like a 1940s comic fantasy), which also features a bit of levitation, Robert Eddison (as Nick), Lem Kitaj (as John's brainbox classmate Munro), and another white mouse called Father Christmas.

I first saw this film as a nine-year-old at one of our two local cinemas, way back In 1973. In those days,we had what was called the 'Saturday club'- for 'Twenty-new-pee' each,a huge bunch of us young kids enjoyed nearly 3 hours (9.15 to around 12 noon)of all sorts of cinematic delights - a few cartoons,a main feature film, the latest episode of some exciting series (usually science-fiction based), and the occasional little gem...'The boy who turned yellow' being by far the most enjoyable and certainly the most memorable! It must have taken a great deal of time and trouble - not to mention skill - to 'paint the world yellow' for this movie, even If 'the world' In this case doesn't extend much further than the tube station, but even now I clearly remember the awe and excitement with which I was filled when this was on the big screen. Watching It again today,for the first time In nearly 40 years (I'm 49 at the time of writing),brought back so many memories and I'm happy to say that I love It as much today as I did back then! Of course,It's dated to say the least, but It's both fun and educational,not only In It's subject matter but as a piece of historic British Cinema! I'm sure the kids will love It, no matter how dated It becomes - show It to the kiddies and see what they think! A little Gem!