Wee Geordie

Wee Geordie is an undersized lad who spends his savings on a physical culture course to increase his height and improve his strength. So successful is he that he is chosen in later years to represent Britain in the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games and as a consequence wins gold in the hammer throw.

Such a simple tale with a message to youngsters that a goal can be achieved through sheer perseverance. Bill Travers plays the lead role as Geordie with a dour expression which breaks into a winning smile when things go right for him. Jean (Nora Gorsen) his companion since childhood urges him to accept the Olympic challenge and provides the romantic interest. Alistair Sim as the laird does well in a comic character role (as always). Francis de Wolff as Samson who prepares the correspondence courses for Geordie is a loud and aggressive character who takes all the credit for Geordie's success. There is a genuinely funny scene at the railway station when he farewells Geordie on his trip to Australia.

The dialogue is very simple and unsophisticated. It is spoken slowly and clearly and fortunately the Scottish accent can be understood. The colour photography has a washed out look and shows how much the technology has advanced in the last 40 years or so.

A nice little family film that will gladden the heart of any wee laddie or lassie.

It's hardly "Local Hero" but this Scottish-set comedy from the Launder and Gilliat team is still a charmer. Bill Travers is the game-keeper's son who is entered for the Melbourne Olympics as a hammer-thrower but insists on wearing his kilt. It's a very simple little picture with characters that are easy to like. Travers may not have been much of an actor but he was certainly personable and Alastair Sim is wonderful as the local laird while the Scottish locations are lovely and like "Local Hero" it's funny but in a very gentle kind of way. This is British humour at its most restrained and its supporting cast of of character actors is first-rate. Popular at the time, it has disappeared over the years but is worth reviving.

saw this movie as a child in scotland and loved it. it popped up on tv a few years ago and i taped it but the quality was not great. if it ever came available as a vhs or dvd i would buy it in a heartbeat. a simpler time told in a simpler way. "come away ma wee geordie" was a classic line that reverberated in my head ...nostalgia...

Farm boy Rulon Gardner's fabulous win at the Sydney Olympics in Greco-Roman wrestling is almost a real-life incarnation of the hero of "Wee Geordie." Goerdie, the hero of this wonderful low-key comedy, starts out as an undersized little boy in rural Scotland, who grows up to be very big indeed. He takes up hammer-throwing after completing a physical-culture courst that converts him from 99 lb. weakling to "Charles Atlas." And, of course, he ends up in the 1956 Olympics, wearing his kilt and throwing for the gold.

I saw this film as a kid when it first came out, and was lucky enough to see it on television about a decade ago--and it had lost none of its charm. What with Rulon and Sydney, it's time to bring out this wonderful comedy on Video/DVD. Alistair Sim is a wonderful laird and Bill Travers plays the ultra-grown-up Geordie. It's really funny in the way of Brit comedies of the era.

It is time that this movie was released on DVD. It has been at least ten years since I last saw it on PBS. The values extolled in this film are never ending, and perhaps even timely in this period of heightened violence in the world. Geordie has been a favourite for many years and, notwithstanding my like for all of the classic and modern hard-hitting western, war and other action films, the scene where Geordie tosses the hammer for a Gold Medal while he envisions his sweetheart coming over a hill through the heather is only one that remains stuck in my mind, even to this day.