This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Billy Gray played a horrible little boy in several movies--most notably the Doris Day films "On Moonlight Bay" and "By the Light of the Silvery Moon". This sort of character was quite a bit different from 'Bud' on "Father Knows Best". Here, Gray is up to his typical sort of character of the day...all boy...and all BAD boy!The film begins with Bobby (Gray) and his friends tossing rocks through the windows of a supposedly abandoned house. Imagine their surprise when they see it's NOT abandoned! Bobby has a VERY active imagination (in other words he lies a lot) and tells his dad that the man inside was mean and attacked him!! Well, Bob Sr. (George Murphy) is mad but level-headed and goes to see what is up. Well, the new neighbor isn't very friendly...and slams the door in their faces. Later, Bobby comes home with an adorable mutt and the kid loves the thing. However, when the pet dies, Bobby begins imagining that the neighbor poisoned the dog...and he begins telling everyone that he KNOWS this to be true. What's the sad truth? See the film.This is a very well written slice of life film..nothing great but well done all around. Gray, though playing a brat, played him wonderfully and the film is well worth seeing. I also agree with another review where it pointed out how amazing the camera-work was in the film. It was almost film noir-like...very artsy and amazingly good for a B-movie.

Totally miserable film dealing with a young boy's suspicion when his dog is found poisoned. The next door neighbor, a disagreeable, nasty and mysterious man is thought to be the killer and the boy goes out of control whenever he sees the man.Nancy Davis, Mrs. Ronald Reagan, played his mother. Her character is outrageously benign here. Even the way she calls out to her son in the film, a mother would be so much more assertive here. As the father, George Murphy is given a poor script to work with. Owner of a fruit orchard, a sidebar theme in this dismal film regards the dropping of temperatures and its affects upon what is being grown.Our mysterious neighbor's transition is sudden and while he becomes a sympathetic figure in the end, it's too much to digest and believe.

Surprisingly well-made and, at times, subtle and unpredictable Billy Gray vehicle released six months after the spectacular "The Day the Earth Stood Still". Billy was certainly on a roll.Although there is a certain Bildungsroman aspect to the film, the emphasis is on plot and intelligent development. Several scenes introduced primarily to increase interest and suspense are brought off very effectively. Bradley's treatment of children is intriguing.Photography and music are certainly above average for this era, genre, and budget.Unfortunately, this movie does not appear to be available on DVD or video, although if you keep an eye out, you may catch it on TMC.

Rather surprising that the director here, David Bradley, would go on to make some notoriously awful films. There isn't quite enough to the story and the ending is a timid disappointment, but the film boasts some unusually powerful, even unforgettable imagery. The kind that, if you see this movie as a child, will probably stick with you for a lifetime.Bradley does a wonderful job conveying a sense of how alien and intimidating the world must look through the eyes of a ten year old, especially when that ten year old ventures outside the safe, protected space that is his every day environment. (An environment that seems relatively harmless during the day but hostile and terrifying at night.)What images. The boy's head framed against the backdrop of the huge, sinister house next door where the mysterious, ill-tempered man resides. The boy sprinting through a fog-enshrouded orchard toward a raised, judgmental camera. Hitch-hiking on the side of a lonely highway as headlights bear down. A motorcyclist appearing like a ghost. Getting a ride through the dark in the cold night air, the biker's affable ramblings distant, dream-like. A mesmerizing montage of the boy watching his dedicated dad scrambling to heat his orchards on a night when the temperature drops below freezing, lighting flame after flame after flame. A subtle, unsettling sequence set in an abandoned home on the ocean where a creepy older boy scares the living daylights out of him."Father Knows Best" brat Billy Gray plays the lonely boy and he is an odd, atypically intense child actor. At times he is effective, at others he is simply obnoxious. He is one moody little actor in a moody little film. He would probably even unnerve that red-headed demon from those unfortunate "Problem Child" movies. Nobody else in the cast makes much of an impression, though everyone is adequate. George Murphy is the decent dad. Nancy Davis (actually not a bad actress at all) is hardly on screen and when she is she's playing the least pregnant looking pregnant lady you'll ever see. Kurt Kasznar is the strange neighbor, though he's not as ghoulish or ghastly looking as you're supposed to think he is. The child actress who plays Gray's nemesis/sweetheart, a girl named Anna Glomb, looks remarkably like Denise Richards must have looked like at the same age.A not-so-distant cousin of "To Kill A Mockingbird". Bradley was clearly a uniquely gifted film-maker, though this may be the only evidence of that talent. What happened?