Flight of the Doves (1971, UK)

A sentimental but entertaining children's adventure, set almost entirely in the Irish Republic and filmed there.

Finn Dove (Jack Wild) is 13 and his sister Derval (Helen Raye) is 7. They have been left a large sum of money -- $10,000 -- but if they cannot be found by the authorities, the money passes to their uncle, Hawk Dove (Ron Moody). He is a sort of D-list theatrical person, the master of disguise.

The children live with an unsympathetic guardian, and when they realise that there is dirty work afoot, to rob them of the money, they go on the run. There follow plenty of adventures -- although the little girl seems just a little too small to manage some of them -- but they are treated to the singing of Dana, the Irish singer who won the Eurovision Song Contest in the same year.

As the police are closing in, the children become more desperate, and, knowing that the police are looking for a 13 year old boy and a seven year old girl, they swap genders, securing (for a while) their escape as tinker children.

But Hawk Dove has promised the money to himself; he has already nearly caught up with the children, and now posing as a female poetical literary writer he gives them a lift in his car, and takes them to a lonely rocky place at the edge of the sea, where he tries unsuccessfully to drown them.

The film is a charming period piece with some good actors.

HF June 2007

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