This ingeniously small-scale sci-fi adventure of a tiny, shiny alien ball-being with strange powers and a taste for electricity, crisps and custard, was released the same year as Star Wars, and foreshadows E.T., but was made for just a fraction of the cost of either. It was produced for The Children's Film Foundation, makers of intelligent, fun films for British kids, from the 1950s to the 1980s.
Sammy dreams of becoming a super athlete, despite his puny build. When his lucky training t-shirt is thrown into a scientist's lab it becomes imbued with 'super strength' power. When Sammy manages to recover the t-shirt he uses his new-found strength to outrun baddies and bullies alike.
Shot on location around the lonely, windswept coasts of Cornwall, this is an impressively ghostly adventure from the Children's Film Foundation. It remains a cautionary tale for profit-hungry modern miners, and the fine underground camera work effectively conveys all the creepy claustrophobia of ...
A superb early work by illustrious British director Lewis Gilbert (Alfie, You Only Live Twice) which follows orphaned Polish refugee Janek, who runs into trouble in the shape of two scheming thieves.
