What an excellent film for adults and children alike to have seen at the theaters when it was released over seventy (70) years ago. Roddy McDowell plays a young and naive Scotsman named David Balfour who unbeknownst to him, has inherited a large fortune from a deceased Uncle he hardly knew. It is a film about trust and betrayal, cruel men who are greedy as well as men with morals such as the Scottish rebel Alan Breck played superbly Dan O'Herlihy.
When reviewing a classic film older than five (5) decades I try and take into consideration what the world looked like "at that time period." In the late 1940's the world had already been through two (2) recent World wars and the general population needed to be reminded that there were bad people whose greed would take them to a dark place (such as kidnapping and slave selling). There were also naive people such as the young David Balfour (Roddy McDowell) who had not yet been victimized.
So the world needed this young victim to be saved and who better to be his savior than the Scottish swashbuckler rebel hero, Alan Breck (Dan O'Herlihy). Keep in mind that women of the time period were also seeking adventure, heroes, and of course romance, which is where the beautiful innkeepers daughter Aileen Fairlie (Sue England) comes into the picture.
I thought it was a film filled with adventure, double crossing, and a youth realizing that the world can be cruel and one has to keep their wits about them. The romance between the star crossed lovers of Aileen Fairlie and David Balfour added value to the famous author Robert Louis Stevenson's book, Kidnapped, in a time period after two World Wars when both young and old men and women alike wanted to escape to the movies for a few hours to find adventure and romance and this film delivered it all.
For the above reasons I give it a highly rated 8 out of 10 IMDB rating
