Baxter! (1972, rel 1973 Lionel Jeffries)

Long unavailable, Jeffries' follow up to The Railway Children is a much more serious affair, involving essentially the child abuse case of young Californian Scott Jacoby, in London with his neglectful mother Lynn Carlin. The fact that he finds friends in fantasy parents Britt Ekland and Jean-Pierre Cassell, nutty neighbour Sally Thomsett and sympathetic therapist Patricia Neal sort of makes it worse.

All acting good, film is written by Michel Audiard and based on the novel 'The Boy Who Could Make Himself Disappear' by Kin Platt (1968) and displays fine camerawork by the great Geoffrey Unsworth (particularly in fevery night scenes). At once quirky and melancholy it's an affecting little number, and probably a flop.