Il piccolo colonnello

Musically speaking,this flick contains what is probably Joselito's best rendering:Franz Schubert's "Ave Maria" .But you've got to sit through the whole film because this wonderful rendition happens in the last minutes.He also sings a snatch of Mozart,but it's obvious he likes flamenco best.

The story ? It begins as some kind of "David Copperfield" :the wicked uncle who whips his nephew :a Spanish Mister Murdstone ;then the old governess in tears who tells the poor dear he'll be sent to a boarding-school:a Spanish Pegotty.One should also note that Joselito plays a rich noble heir,a count ,and that his late dad's brother covets his fortune .

But it quickly leaves Dickens for a mixture of "Ali Baba and the forty thieves " and "Snowwhite and the seven dwarfs".Joselito is first kidnapped by bad thieves but afterward saved by seven good brigands whose song recalls the seven dwarfs' "hi !ho! "and who live in a cave of course. Besides ,they are so dirty that Joselito insists that they have a bath in the river!and there is a grumpy one among them!

Borrowed its title from an old eponymous movie starring another wiz kid,Shirley Temple (1935).