Street Urchins!

List creator: JGriffioen Created on: April 15, 2005 - 12:59 PM PDT Description: orphans, waifs, street arabs, gutter-snipes, dock rats, & lil' imps of darkness!

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	movie title	related list	average rating	MPAA rating	watch	rent	buy
	The Kid (Chaplin Collection) (1921)			Not Rated
The tramp raises an alley-fightin' window breakin' pancake makin' gutter snipe Jackie Coogan. This is the movie that elevates Chaplin to God.
	The Kid (Chaplin Collection: Bonus Disc) (1921)			Not Rated
Contains Jackie Coogan's "My Boy" (1921) where the kid plays an orphaned immigrant who lives with a salty old bastard. When will Turner release "The Rag Man" on DVD?
	Oliver Twist (1922)			Not Rated
Jackie Coogan as the ultimate Urchin archetype; Chaney as Fagan. Polanski can't do better.
	Oliver Twist (Criterion Collection) (1948)			Not Rated
if talkies are more your thing. . .
	Paper Moon (1973)
Tatum O'Neal plays the smokin' cursin' orphan Addie with her father as the grifter bible salesman across 1920s Kansas/Missouri.
	George Washington (Criterion Collection) (2000)
This is a ham-fisted attempt at Malick, but I love it when Vernon says to Sonya "stop playing with that doo doo girl." DVD includes Clu Gulager's 1969 short film "A Day With the Boys."
	Newsies (1992)
Singing urchins in the caps that bear their name. . .
	The Elephant Man (1980)
Hey mister, why's your head so big? Hey mister, why's your head so big?
	Daddy-Long-Legs (1919)			Not Rated
More orphans! Mary Pickford, the 45-year old street urchin!
	Amarilly of Clothes-Line Alley (1918)			Not Rated
Pickford again. Why doesn't greencine have "Little Annie Rooney"? (best Urchin dirtclod street battle scene ever)
	Into the West (1993)
Ballymun Street Rats (and the next generation of suspiciously wholesome travelers) Tito and Ossie ride Tir na nOg into the west of Ireland! Irish street rats are the best ones of all. Ossie's ashmatic rendition of Danny Boy would get a twopence from me.
	Pygmalion (Criterion Collection) (1938)
Female Cockney guttersnipes aren't bad either. . .
	Gummo (1997)
Harmony Korine takes on an important urchin issue: what to do when some kid gets in the way of your selling-dead-cats-to-chinese-restaurants gig
	The Cider House Rules (1999)
Hoards of moppets with names like "Hazel" and "Buster" living in a spooky New England orphanage haunted by Tobey McGuire.
	The Journey of Natty Gann (1985)
The urchin travel/buddy movie. . .all urchins should have very protective wolves as pets.
	Pixote (1981)			Not Rated
The third world is where you go to find the toughest street urchins nowadays. Put a half dozen of those gutterpunks who hang out at the top of Haight street in a room with one Brazilian orphan for five minutes and guess who'll be screaming for mercy. . .
	Children Underground (2001)			Not Rated
Documentary on tough-as-nails Romanian street urchins. . . (formerly communist countries are a close second)
	The Little Rascals - Hook and Ladder/ Hi Neighbor/ Sundown Ltd. (1932)			Not Rated
Why can't kids today build elaborate train engines in abandoned trainyards or fire engines pulled by dogs or conduct trench play warfare outside slaughterhouses? Fookin' lawyers and political correctness. . .or maybe Sony and Nintendo. . .
	The Little Rascals - Bear Shooters/ Waldo's Last Stand/ Dogs of War! (1930)			Not Rated
Dogs of War has a guest appearance by Harold Lloyd when the rascals stumble into his studio after a grueling trench-warfare vegetable battle. . .
	Annie (Special Anniversary Edition) (1981)
"What about this orphan right here?" "Annie?... Oh, you don't want Annie. Why not?" "Because... Because she's a drunk! " (why did the filmmakers gloss this fact over? I would have liked this to have been explored deeper)
	Days of Heaven (1978)
Amazing accented female urchin narrator (Linda Manz); I think this movie was mostly about grass though, or maybe wheat? (4-5 good urchin scenes, including the end)
	Once Upon a Time in America (Disc 1 of 2) (1984)
I haven't seen this since I was a kid, but I remember lots of rooftop urchin chases and urchins watching older kids get it on, good urchin fun!
	Gangs of New York (pt.1) (Disc 1 of 2) (2002)
Lots of good five points street urchin ambiance.
	Abandoned (2001)
Institutionalized homosexual Hungarian street urchins. Can't go wrong.
	The Commitments (1991)
Pay attention to what the streetrats are doing in the background as the band walks around north Dublin. . .
	The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975)
You know that House of Pain song on their first album (fine malt lyrics) where they keep repeating their name? I knew a kid in 1993 who recorded over that beat, just repeating, "we're the Apple Dumpling Gang!" Man, you HAD to be there.
	Pollyanna (2002)			Not Rated
Where's the Disney version? Kevin Corcoran was like a midcentury Jackie Coogan. I always wanted him to punch Hayley Mills with her glad game. Then he became assistant director on "Scarecrow and Mrs. King." (Coogan grew up to play Uncle Fester)
	Boy's Choir (2000)			Not Rated
I admit I haven't seen this, but "a pair of orphans obsessed with choir singing" sounds pretty terrible.
	We Need a Vacation (2002)
"Two 10-year-old street urchins, fed up with their run-down, depressing neighborhood, embark on a reckless trip through the countryside. Hilarity ensues." We'll see.
	Angels With Dirty Faces (1938)			Not Rated
Why oh why isn't Boys Town out on DVD? This almost makes up for it, you get Cagney & Bogart rather than Spencer Tracy as Father Flanagan. Lots of great urchins in this movie.
	Cartoons That Time Forgot - V. 2 - Down & Out With Flip the Frog			Not Rated
Flip was an ageless depression-era ragamuffin and honorary street urchin.
	Regeneration (1915)			Not Rated
This pre-Cagney gangster movie was filmed in the five points back when it was the five points and not a collection of hipster bars and stores with alligator shoes in the windows.
	Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)
Saw this on a plane. Didn't hear it though.
	Dick Tracy (1990)
Charlie Korsmo makes one annoying street urchin.