The Ransom of Red Chief

This film came as a shock to me, i found this extremely funny and intelligent (not including bill.) Good performances by the cast and an excellent screenplay make this a must see film. Bill, the bumbling side-kick has his share of laughs, and Andy's father gets a lot of laughs with his sarcasm.

Haley Joel Osment, even though much younger still manages to steal the show with another excellent performance.

A class act all round, top notch film 10/10, and thats only because i can't go higher.

'Red Chief', one of O.Henry's most engaging stories, has been filmed at least three times. (I can find no record of the Alex Linz version several have referred to; it does not appear in his IMDb biography.) This version strikes me as the poorest of the three: too much slapstick, too many extraneous characters (the housemaid, the sheriff/narrator) who only slow down the action.

The story was first filmed in 1952 along with four other stories in 'O.Henry's Full House'. The kidnappers were played by the brilliant radio comedian Fred Allen and the equally brilliant pianist/comedian Oscar Levant so it should have been a winner but somehow it failed to click, to me at least. (Lee Aaker of 'Rin Tin Tin' played the boy.) But amazingly the truest and funniest version of this quintessentially American story was filmed in France. 'Le grand chef' (1959) featured Fernandel, then France's leading comic, and Gino Cervi, a prominent Italian actor. 'Red chief' was played by an enchanting youngster named Papouf. Downloadable copies are available but so far I haven't seen one with subtitles. You can use it to brush up on your French or just to enjoy the action.

I saw this movie in Language Arts and it's a well acted, well written, generally funny. There are some very corny cliché' jokes at the beginning (bad guys falling into mud, been there, done that). It's based on O Henry and of course the storyline and especially the ending is fantastic (he is famous for those ironic twist endings, like THE GIFT OF THE MAGI. Girl sells hair to buy husband chain for watch but husband sold watch to buy girl combs. Classic.) This film does have some great jokes and really surprisingly great acting. I was surprised to find out this was only a TV movie! The plot basically is that a troublemaking little boy is kidnapped by two bad guys (your average bumbling, kinda stupid, yet nice,) trying to make some money when their recent purchase of a mine fails. Since the boy is a trouble maker so, naturally, the parents don't believe him at first. I can't spoil the ending now can I?

I realize that a short story, unless it's part of an anthology, is difficult to use as a TV or movie story without a certain amount of padding but I think there is just a bit too much padding. It's a good and fun family movie, I'll give it that, but I was hoping it would stick a bit closer to the short story. There were times I felt they'd used the title, character names, and a few of the incidents from the story and that's it.

It's best for someone who is not expecting it to be the same as the short story.

I think the 1975 version was much better and it still played rather fast and loose with the story. Being shorter it didn't have a chance to play _quite_ so fast and loose, though.

I guess I'm just disappointed that they felt they had to change so much of O. Henry's story.

I'm keeping it around for my grandson who will enjoy it but I'll also introduce him to the source story. He's almost 10 so it won't be a problem with his attention span and also will help him to realize that if you've read a jacket or cover blurb (or even seen the movie) you haven't read the story. He tends to base his book reports on blurbs.

A nice cast was assembled and they all gave good performances. Christoper Lloyd and the late Michael Jeter are very dependable and a pleasure to watch. Child actors, by their very nature, are often a bit cutesy and the boy should have been a couple of years older with a certain rough and readiness about him but I think they managed to make him a bit annoying, which is almost as good.

I read this story when I was in seventh grade, and was happy to see this television movie. It flowed nicely with the actual story, and I did not have one complaint. For anyone who has ever wanted to watch or read a family oriented piece, 'Ransom of Red Chief' is a good one.