Hirondelles et amazones

Wishes do come true, after all...

When, as a boy, I read through every one of Arthur Ransome's novels, I dreamily wished that somebody would adapt them to film. It took longer than I'd hoped, but at least today's children can see something of Ransome's stories, even if they don't read any of his books (although, that is a shame).

Sure, the plot has been shortened significantly but you expect that when four hundred pages of novel are adapted for the screen. Still, the screenplay even manages to include the charcoal makers, Old and Young Billy (Jack Woolger and John Franklin-Williams), which surprised me.

In short, the story is about the four Walker children (John, Susan, Titty and Roger) holidaying on Coniston Water, sailing on the lake, camping on Wildcat Island (Peel Island, actually), meeting and clashing with the Blackett sisters (Nancy and Peggy), and finally performing a valuable service for Captain Flint, uncle to the Blacketts. It's nostalgic; it's inoffensive; it's family fun for families; it's a perfect story for all children.

For myself, I thought Kit Seymour (playing Nancy) lacked the strength of character evident in the stories; looked a bit too old for the part, also. The Walker children were well cast and acted their parts beautifully, I thought. Virginia McKenna, appearing only briefly as Mother, was suitably adult for the times. Reginald Fraser as Captain Flint was okay; Robert Morley would have been a better choice, I think.

Being somewhat of a purist, I would have preferred black and white cinematography as a better mood setter. However, the colour print certainly enhanced the beauty of the lake and surrounding area. Overall, I can't complain. I'm looking forward to experiencing the TV stories of the Coots on the Norfolk Broads. And, with fading hopes, I'm wondering when a benign producer will put the money up to adapt Peter Duck or Missee Lee for the screen. Hope never dies, however...

Recommended for all children from seven to one hundred and seven.

Like many of the other reviewers of this film, I read all the Arthur Ransome books when I was young, and also saw the film when I was around 12 years old.

It's interesting to read some of the reviewers wondering if the film could appeal to today's children in the age of Shrek and the Incredibles. Well, my two daughters just watched it this afternoon (too young to have read the books) and they were both glued to it and the oldest enthusiastically grabbed the books when I pulled them down from the shelf.

Of course, the acting is awful. You ask yourself what on earth Virginia McKenna is doing in it, and Ronald Frazer (on paper) should be a good Captain Flint, but isn't. The children are almost universally awful. The Walker children's received RADA/Children's Film Foundation pronunciation is just about forgivable, but Kit Seymour as Nancy Blackett is so, so wrong, talking like some posh bird instead of the tomboy Northerner she should have been.

But, ah, Kit Seymour where are you now? I had such feelings for you when I was 12. Your posh accent didn't matter to me then, and I carried a flame for you for a long time...

Yes, pretty wooden acting from the children, but I think that was pretty common 34 years ago! However, it's still a good film.

Regarding the likelihood of any parent allowing their children to do what the Walkers did, even at the time - my uncle aged 14 was allowed to take his two younger brothers (10 and 8) overnight camping in a very similar boat on the Solent in 1926 - a far more dangerous place to sail! They were all "not duffers, didn't drown".

I think the film still appeals to younger kids. I took my god-daughter and a friend (8 and 6) to the island in a small dinghy with tan sails, and we lit a fire at the camp ground and filled a kettle from the lake, just as the Walkers do in the film. That was in 2005, and they loved it!

Swallows and Amazons is a very pleasant film, it is nowhere near perfect, but it is very enjoyable. The film does look absolutely beautiful, with lovely views of the Lake District. What the film does lack is a narrative, it is a lovely story, based on Arthur Ransome's superior book, but personally I would have liked more narrative entwined into the story. Consequently, because the film wasn't to be that, despite some undeniably charming scenes, the film is a little shallow. What also let the film down was some of the casting. I had no problem with Virginia McKenna as the mother, she was lovely, and most of the children were very well done, especially Titty and Susan(a very young Susanna Hamilton). The two exceptions to this rule is Roger and Nancy, Roger being too gormless for my liking, and Nancy perhaps too old. Ronald Fraser as Uncle Jim was another problem. I liked his scene at the end with the children, when he plays the accordion, but on the whole he did overact, so I found it difficult to relate to his character. On a positive note, there are some really charming scenes with the children, like any scene on the water. Also the music score was lovely, and was careful not to overshadow the action. I had no problem with the script either, and on the whole the story made the film as charming as it actually is, despite its flaws, but there could have been more narrative. Overall, I really liked it, certainly not the best family film, but one worth looking out for. 7/10 Bethany Cox.

When this arrived, I'd finished reading all the Swallows and Amazons novels just a few months before. I'd also just seen the TV productions of the two Coots books (click on my name for that review) and read Roger Wardale's "In Search of Swallows & Amazons" which interpolates a fair amount of biographical data into a photographic search for the real Lakeland sites in which the fictions take place.

Much about this 1974 theatrical film is right, and two things -- both casting issues -- grievously wrong. Judging from Wardale's photos and Ransome's descriptions, the lake lands, Wildcat and Comorant Islands, and especially the two landing sites on Wildcat look perfect or nearly. Also right: the two boats of the title swishing across the lake with the camera set low so that the distances and land masses appear as they might in a child's eye. I like that tacking, so important throughout the series, happens clearly and instructively without anyone ever stopping to explain it, whether Roger running otherwise bizarre switchbacks up a lazily sloping lawn, or John doing a hundred-count to tack in the dark. (Believe me it's clear when you see, especially if you know any of the books.) John and Susan, the one groping toward becoming a natural leader, the other painstakingly matronly yet able to break in an instant into a child's sprint, seem well cast and anchor the group. Able seaman Titty's the best cast. She has the most active imagination in the group, always seems more actively and willingly to believe, while the two older children have to work just a little at pretending. Roger, to me, looks a little two Alfred E. Newman, but does no real harm to the film.

The most horribly miscast is Nancy, the older Amazon. Though a bare year older in the books, here she towers over the others. I think she's at least as tall as the other miscast character, her uncle "Captain Flint," and even has a figure with which she could pass for eighteen or twenty. But worse than that, she's not wild enough. Not until the very end does she utter a single grudgingly weak "Shiver me timbers," or if she did before they were too limp to notice. She seems nearly as "native" as the Swallow's mother, while she should have been a driving force, the most vivid pretender, or equal at least to Titty. I'm not sure how to describe to who haven't read. Maybe the closest I can come is Charles Shultz's Peppermint Patty but with a lot more confidence. Reading, I always heard Nancy's "Shiver me timbers" as raucous as a parrot's cry.

Bird-faced actor Ronald Fraser's Uncle Jim, or "Captain Flint," looks like a fifty-year-old petty magistrate. He could never sincerely belong with these kids against the Natives. He IS a native, irredeemably. (Natives are adults, shore people, or in general anyone not in on the frame of mind out of which the term Native comes.) Ransome's Captain Flint is fat and knowledgeable, playful but seldom or never silly. Ronald Fraser condescends in a way that's anathema not just to the real fictional Flint but to Ransome.

But please take the good of all I've said, and do see this film.