Baxter!

Light UK drama concerns precocious young American boy named Roger Baxter, living in London with his squabbling parents, who sees a speech therapist for his impediment (he pronounces his R's as W's). His doctor later comes to his aid after Baxter's parents intend to divorce and he suffers an emotional breakdown. Reginald Rose's cheeky screenplay, adapted from Kin Platt's book "The Boy Who Could Make Himself Disappear", opens with so much fast patter that the later switch to melodrama is almost hard to swallow (particularly after Patricia Neal's doctor takes a whack at Lynn Carlin's hysterical mother, who is busy screeching at her catatonic son like a banshee). In the lead, talented Scott Jacoby seems a bit over-rehearsed here--I didn't quite buy his Wobert Wedford's--but he's a fearless child actor, his youthful excitement nicely undercut by a sarcastic incredulousness. Neal is very fine (as always) and Sally Thomsett is cute as a teenage neighbor who uses a telescope to spy on Baxter, who disrobes for her and does muscleman poses out on his balcony (such were the times). ** from ****