Jackie Coogan

Mystery drama of a detective who finds himself in trouble when he turns in the direction of a beautiful girl who is trying to commit suicide.

A pardoned stagecoach robber, becomes government agent and marries a naive unsuspecting east-coast dentist in order to join a wagon train and catch the smugglers who have been selling guns to the Indians. Jesse W. Haywood graduates from dental school in Philadelphia in 1870 and goes west "to fight oral ignorance." Meanwhile stagecoach robber Penelope "Bad Penny" Cushing is offered a pardon if she will track down a ring of gun smugglers. She tricks the bungling Haywood into a fictitious marriage as a disguise, and he becomes the heroic "Doc the Haywood" after he guns down "Arnold the Kid" and performs other exploits with Penny's help (unbeknown to him or anyone else). —Doug Shafer <dsshafer@uncc.edu>

A Chicago mobster hires a rock'n'roll singer and his band to keep an eye on his daughter during Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Elvis Presley is in fine form as singer Rusty Wells, who is hired by Big Frank to watch over his daughter Valerie while she is on her first spring-break holiday. Much mayhem ensues when heartthrob Romano tries his luck with the hapless girl, and Elvis et all must intervene. —Paul Batey <pbatey@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au>

We open with a background of space nebulae and stars, the title sequence, credits, and the actors who portray the space children. A station wagon appears on a lonely road approaching the beach along the California coast. Inside we meet Dave Brewster (Adam Williams), his wife Anne (Peggy Webber) and their two sons. In the back seat is the oldest Bud (Michel Ray) and his younger brother Ken (Johnny Crawford). They've been driving for hours from San Francisco. Their destination: a military base. Dave was transferred to complete his company's work on The Thunderer--a six stage intercontinental missile at the Eagle Point Missile Project. Anne is apprehensive about the move, but Dave and the kids are excited to live on the beach. The kids hear a strange sound, but the parents hear nothing. The kids then see a strange light in the sky as their car stalls out. The car starts back up and they check in at the guard shack. They are directed to their new home Unit 3, a trailer. All the contractor families live in trailers. Dave and Anne move their few belongings into their new home while the kids explore the beach and meet the other children. Anne continues to voice her dissatisfaction with the surroundings and leaving friends and family in San Francisco. Dave chalks it up to their being tired from the long trip. She asks him about the project. They go outside to find the children, but the security officer, Mr. James (Peter Baldwin) arrives and asks Dave to join him at a briefing for the newly arrived on the Project. Anne heads back to the trailer and is greeted by her new next door neighbor who introduces herself as Frieda Johnson (Vera Marshe). They chat and exchange information about their kids and their new home. Frieda invites Anne to a little get together planned for that evening. Bud and Ken are running along the cliffs playing ball. They head down to the beach where they discover a cave. They explore it and discuss the light they saw in the sky earlier. Bud explores a little further inside, but tells Ken to stay behind. Eadie Johnson (Sandy Descher) introduces herself to Ken, as the other space children appear. Eadie introduces the other children to Bud and Ken. First is the youngest, Buster (uncredited), the oldest Tim (Johnny Washbrook), George (uncredited) and Helen (Gloria Anne Halper). The children invite Bud and Ken to see The Thunderer, but a guard chases them away. Lt. Col. Alan Manley (Richard Shannon) is giving a briefing on the project--to send a satellite equipped with a hydrogen warhead into space. Meanwhile, the kids head back to the beach to play when they see the same strange light in the sky, but this time a strange object descends on the light beam and enters the cave. Back at the briefing the light and power go off. The object is communicating with Bud and the power resumes at Col. Manley's briefing. Later that day, Dr. Wahrman (Raymond Bailey) strolls along the beach and runs into Col. Manley who is fishing. They talk about tomorrow's test of the missile. Their children, the Colonel's daughter Phyllis (Eilene Janssen) and Dr. Wahrman's son, Saul (David Bair), return to shore from their swim. That evening Frieda exits her trailer to supply more food for the weenie roast. We meet her husband, Hank Johnson (Jackie Coogan). The Johnsons and Brewsters talk about the project and national defense. Frieda prefers not to discuss controversial subjects. Hank and Dave invite the kids to go swimming, and they initially express excitement. But the voice they hear tells them to decline and they make their excuses and head off on their own for the beach. As Dave and Hank head off for a swim we are introduced to Peg Gamble (Jean Engstrom) and her alcoholic second husband Joe Gamble (Russell Johnson) who is tipsy, as usual, and complaining about his stepson, Tim. The children are attracted to the siren-like call of the entity and discover a football-sized and shaped blob pulsating in the sand. It communicates with Bud and selects him as the leader. Tim panics and tries to destroy the blob with a rock, but is paralyzed as the rock he holds overhead explodes into small pieces. Ken restores his ability to move and admonishes him to follow instructions in future. He agrees, and the rest of the children agree to follow Bud's directives. Back in the trailer Anne and Dave are frantically trying to find Bud and Ken. It is quite late when Bud and Ken arrive back to the trailer, and Mom and Dad lay into them. They try to explain their encounter on the beach but their parents don't believe them. When Dave grabs Bud's arm to administer a little discipline, his arm becomes paralyzed. The boys take Dave back to the beach, accompanied by Eadie Johnson. Tim tries to sneak out of the trailer to join the group, but he is intercepted by a very drunk Joe. Tim manages his escape, with Joe in hot pursuit. He eventually catches Tim, but before he can administer a beating is struck down by the power of the blob. Joe recovers and returns to the trailer. Dave picks up the blob, hides it inside his jacket and returns to the trailer park. Tim reaches his trailer first and enters, only to discover Joe, sitting in a chair and dead. Peg enters the trailer and sees Joe. Hank confronts Dave, Eadie and the boys and demands an explanation. Peg arrives asking for help. She tells Hank that Joe is dead. Anne welcomes her family back into the trailer, but is horrified by what they brought with them. The ambulance for Joe arrives. Bud explains that the blob must spend the night in the trailer. The next morning Anne and Dave demand answers from the boys about the blob, but get no satisfactory answers. The phone rings and Dave is told The Thunderer will launch tonight. Dave follows the boys back to the cave. They are carrying the blob. He tells them about the launch and confirms the boys knew all along--the blob told them. Major Thomas (Larry Pennell) interrupts a meeting between Dr. Wahrman and Col. Manley. He tells them Dave Brewster insists on meeting, it's an emergency. Dave enters and tells them the project is in danger, but before he can go into details, Bud appears, and he is struck unable to speak. When he tries to write out his warning his hand is paralyzed and he collapses. He recovers in the infirmary. His wife and children come to see him. The children begin the sabotage of the project. Bud causes a fuel delivery truck to malfunction. Buster and Helen disrupt communications at a guard shack, while innocently eating ice cream. Hank heads off for the beach to find his daughter, Eadie. He finds some of her clothes outside the cave. Eadie comes out of the cave. Hank insists upon examining the cave, over Eadie's objections. He enters and sees the blob which attacks him with a beam of light. He exits the cave and collapses on the sand. The blob has grown considerably. Dazed and unresponsive, Hank heads back to his trailer. That evening the children get out of bed and head down to the beach to see the blob, which by now is huge, and get final instructions. Wahrman and Manley meet and try to make sense of the days strange events. Wahrman notices that children are involved. He decides to go see Dave in the infirmary. The children open a locked gate and enter the base, unseen by the guard. Dr. Wahrman does see them, and confronts the guard for his lack of attention. Wahrman meets with Dave and tells him of his suspicions. Dave is surprised nothing happens when he realizes Wahrman knows the truth about the children, including their strange powers. But when Wahrman tries to call someone, the phone malfunctions. Wahrman demands to know where it is and what it looks like. Wahrman and Dave go to the cave and confront the now boulder sized blob. Wahrman makes his appeal, gets no response, but is allowed to leave. Preparations for the launch continue on schedule. They are unaware of the sabotage the children have caused. The children exit the base and head back to the cave. The site is cleared for launch as Dave and Wahrman race back to the base. They arrive just in time for the launch. But when the missile is launched, the warhead on the top explodes on the pad as the children watch from the beach. The children have won. The military heads for the cave to destroy the blob, followed by the children's parents. The children block the cave entrance, as their parents plead for them to abandon the blob. The blob exits the cave with the children still blocking fire, until it ascends back up into the sky on its beam of light. The children explain to the military and their parents that other children, like themselves, sabotaged similar projects all around the world. We close with a passage from St. Matthew, Ch.18, v.3, over the nebulae and star background.

This classic is not to be missed. Charlie Chaplin 's little tramp finds an abandoned baby and decides to take him home. When he first brings the child to his tenement house, neighbors ask what the baby's name is, so the tramp ducks inside briefly to check the gender, and returns and responds: 'John'. Chaplin's portrayal is especially poignant because he had lost his own infant son shortly before starting work on this film. Chaplin's son had multiple congenital anomalies that were fatal at the time. Chaplin was so despondent over the child's death that he put 'The Little Mouse' on the child's grave marker, rather than his name. You see what paternal grief looks like when you view the scene in which child protective services take the child away. The film does have a happy ending, though.

The Tramp cares for an abandoned child, but events put their relationship in jeopardy. A woman decides to abandon her baby in the backseat of an automobile with a handwritten note attached, beseeching the finder to care for and love the child. The baby is discovered by the initially-reluctant Tramp, who eventually softens and comes to love him as his own. As the boy grows up, both he and The Tramp must learn to navigate through a life that spawns one adventure after another. —Kyle Perez Faced with raising her fatherless son alone, an unmarried single mother abandons her baby. As one thing leads to another, The Tramp (1915) crosses paths with the child on a street corner, and just like that, the carefree vagabond reluctantly becomes his surrogate father. However, so much can change in five years. Now, the tight-knit pair runs a glazing business, utterly unaware that their already fragile happiness is at stake. But who knows what the future has in store for the bright-eyed kid? —Nick Riganas In this silent film, a tramp discovers and raises an abandoned child, forming a deep paternal bond despite poverty and societal pressures. Together, they navigate hardship, misfortune, and the threat of separation. The film blends comedy, pathos, and social commentary, exploring family, compassion, and the transformative power of love and care amid adversity. —chera_khalid