The Pied Piper

Although not action packed this movie moves along at a good pace with plenty of twist and turns and a good deal of wit. When Howard, played by Monty Woolley, is fishing on his holiday in Eastern France he wants nothing more than peace and quiet. When the Germans invade during World War II, he escapes with two and finally a hodge podge of children, and peace and quiet are the last thing he will get. They must trek to saftey and outwit the Germans. Woolley is perfect as the gruff elderly man than seems likely to have been a strict disciplinarian. The kids will melt anyones heart including his. This movie is a classic and it is hard to believe it isn't even available on VHS let alone DVD.

I love "The Pied Piper." Although born in New York City, Monty Woolley strikes just the right note as a British tourist in Europe who gets roped into shepherding several French children, most of whose parents have been killed in the World War II, to safety in England or America. Woolley was nominated for a Best Actor Academy Award for this film, and the film itself was nominated for Best Picture also. The supporting cast, including Anne Baxter, Roddy McDowell, and Otto Preminger, are likewise superb.

It boggles my mind that this award-nominated film is not available on video is any form. Why is 20th Century Fox ignoring this worthy film while so many others of lesser quality are released? Heck, I'd even take it in the Fox Cinema Archives series, if nothing else.

I happened to be only 9 yrs old when I saw this movie for the first and only time in 1967 in Novato, CA ....Even I could understand it at that age...The 2 scenes I remember best were when Woolley's character: 1. ...Asked the Nazi officer if they've captured "him yet". The officer asks: "Who?", and Woolley replies firmly: "Hitler". Officer replies back in the negative, then Woolley defiantly but bravely yells back: ''BAHH!", then strides out of the officer's room. 2...Is brought another stray child to his group by someone unknown. A woman in Woolley's group tries to speak to the child to find out more. The child replies in an unknown language. Then the womans exclaims: "That sounds like Dutch!" (The reason I remember this so much is at age 9 I was shocked to see a war scene of an orphaned child speaking a foreign language. Where were the parents?, I thought. They must have been killed...)

I read the novel twice many years ago and found it perhaps Nevil Shute's best story, and he wrote many, all outstanding. Still I am tempted to hint at the possibility that the film excels the book, much because of Monty Woolley's rendering of the grumpy old Englishman sick of everything who finds himself stranded in France by the war after Dunkirk and has to accept helping two children to England although he hates children. His long difficult odyssey through war-harried France to somehow reach England with constantly more orphaned children on his hands turns him into another and slightly different man, and the realism depicting this is what makes the film so impressing still today after 70 years for its more than just convincing character. It was made before any of the turning points of the war in 1942 after Pearl Harbour and the fall of Singapore while the Germans were still pounding Moscow and besieging Leningrad, in brief, when the war was at its grimmest. Nevil Shute's story is about humanity in the depth of the despair of this world crisis, which the film admirably conveys, underlining the realism. Monty Woolley, however, is finally matched by Otto Preminger as the German officer, who represents the final conversion to humanity and couldn't make it better as a perfectly brutal and revolting officer who finally has to fall to his own humanity. It's one of the greatest stories told from the second world war, and the film honours it. Strange though that this very important and wonderful film should be so hard to find on internet. A remake was made for TV in 1989 with Peter O'Toole which also pays credit to the story, such a story can only be told well, but that film can't be found at all.

Monty Woolley is in France, fly fishing, when the radio announces the English evacuation of Dunkirk. Woolley had come to forget; his son, a flier in the RAF, is dead, and his attempts to serve in some capacity have been turned down. So here he is, occupying himself. But the other guest, an Englishwoman, at the inn he is staying at has to go elsewhere. She entrusts Woolley with her two children to get them back to England safely. They start off, but Germans slow them down. Somehow, they pick up other children to get to safety, and Ann Baxter, and even Dalio. But when they make it to the Channel, they are captured by Otto Preminger playing one of his Nasty Nazis, who is convinced that Woolley is an English spy using the children as a cover.

Is this a serious movie, or a fable? Or is there necessarily a difference between the two? Wooley gives a performance that goes from guarded and grumpy to open as he comes to realize his service is to take care of the children he has, largely unwittingly, been charged with. When Preminger prods him on what he means to do with this gaggle of children, he expounds on his decision to send them to connections in America. But had he thought this out earlier, or has it just occurred to him? Is this a well conceived idea, or just more English muddling through? I like to believe the latter, but would it make any difference to this tale of decency under threat?

With Roddy McDowall, J. Carrol Naish, Jill Esmond, and Peggy Ann Garner.