OK, let’s get this out of the way right off the bat: this is not the same Child’s Play as the one you are thinking of. There are no murdering dolls, there is no precocious little kid and there is no voodoo. No, 1973’s Child’s Play is an altogether different movie, in fact, I think you would be hard pressed to classify it as a horror movie in the first place. Oh sure, under the most broad strokes it can be seen as one, after all, horrific things do happen in it, but it really is more of a drama than anything. But, I guess most people consider Psycho to be horror, so maybe there is room for drama under the horror umbrella. I will say one thing, if this is horror, it is classy horror; that is to say there is very little blood, no monsters, and no ladies parading around with their dirty pillows hanging out. In fact, there are no women in this movie at all, just a school full of boys. Now, normally I don’t go down for classy horror, I prefer my dealings with the genre to be full of blood, boobs, and some other third thing that starts with “b” that I cannot think of at this time; but Child’s Play won me over with it’s pedigree. James Mason (North by Northwest, Lolita, and Salem’s Lot), Robert Preston (The Music Man) and Beau Bridges (let’s just be honest, everything, he is in everything) star in this flick, with one of Hollywood’s most consistent and unappreciated directors at the helm: Sidney Lumet. Lumet is not a household name, unless someone in your household went to film school, but he really should be. The man brought us 12 Angry Men, Dog Day Afternoon, Network and many, many more. Hell, he directed The Wiz, and still managed to keep a career going, that should tell you how great this guy is. Child’s Play is as close to horror as Lumet has gotten, so I am going to give it a pass, and treat it like a horror picture, because this is my website, and I get to make calls like that. Don’t like it? Make your own damn site.
Bridges plays Paul Reis, a former student of a prestigious Catholic school, come back as a teacher. Finding himself back in his old stomping grounds, he immediately befriends his old teacher, the beloved Mr. Dobbs (played impeccably by Preston) and finds that his old Senior teacher, the tough as nails Mr. Malley (Mason, in a roll that should have won an Oscar) isn’t nearly as scary as he was when Reis was just a lad. In fact, Malley seems to be at the end of his rope, with a mother dying of cancer, and voluntary retirement looking him dead between the eyes. And the student body seems a little off as well, with random attacks between students becoming the norm. Very quickly the seriousness of the situation becomes apparent when one student has an eye ripped out of his head during dodge-ball, which, for those of you who remember dodge-ball, is a moderately serious injury from the game.
The violence continues to escalate, and Mr. Malley continues to become more and more unhinged as each passing seen flows by. Soon he is outwardly accusing Dobbs of trying to kill his mother, and of sending him horrifically pornographic magazines, just to try to drive him out. But Dobbs remains a kind hearted, wonderful teacher, but is he, perhaps too wonderful? Reis finds himself in the middle of this war, and tries to even it out, but terrible things just keep happening, and things just aren’t adding up.
Like I said, this is more of a drama than a horror film (although, if you take a very liberal view of some of the goings on, there is a way to read the film as a battle between heaven and hell, and that could work…sort of), but it is a very well made, super atmospheric film, with perfect performances form just about everyone involved. It was based on a fairly successful Broadway play, and when it came time to film, Marlon Brando himself was cast as Mr. Dobbs. Legend has it that when Brando released James Mason’s roll was more important to the film, he walked off, only to be sued by the producers. Casting Robert Preston in the roll was a simple stroke of luck, as he was just getting off of a career resurgence with The Music Man a few years earlier, and Brando was in a bit of a slump. What could go wrong? Well, the critics panned the film, for one, the box office was terrible to it for another, and Marlon Brando went on to star in The Godfather, and ended up laughing all the way to James Mason’s well deserved Oscar for yet another. Ah well, in the end it worked out artistically, even if it didn’t commercially, as Preston was the absolute best possible choice for Mr. Dobbs, and the movie was really, rather good.
The years have not been kind to Child’s Play, in fact, it has been largely out of print, allegedly because production houses are afraid the movie buying public would mistake this movie for the 80’s murdering doll version, and riot or some such nonsense; but it has, finally, come out on Blu-ray (to put this in perspective, it had no official VHS or DVD release, Amazon used to print the disc on demand for customers); so now maybe it can get some of the love it deserves. Like I said, it isn’t really a horror movie, per say, and it is classier than most of the movies that I normally watch, but don’t let that dissuade you, Child’s Play is a fantastic film from start to finish, and deserves to be seen.
Rating: B+
Director:
Writers:
Robert Marasco (play), Leon Prochnik (screenplay)
Stars:
B Movies B Reviewed 