Charming, sweet film about two lonely 12 year old girls in New York who become obsessed with a concert pianist (Peter Sellers). This is a kids film that feels as though its made by smart New Yorkers - there's no pandering or mush or 12 year old male love interest, the support cast is full of actors then best known for stage work (eg Tom Bosley, Angela Lansbury), the mother characters are witty about modern music and attending psychiatrists, no cutes, Sellers was then a kind of trendy cache star coming off the Boutling brothers films and Lolita.
One wonders if these things contributed to the film's underwhelming box office performance, though it has a strong cult. I think perhaps the main reason was the lack of a strong story - the girls become friends, meet Sellers, follow him around, then one runs away from home.
Maybe if you had the mother (Lansbury) have an affair with Sellers as the second act - then something coming out of that for the third.
The two lead girls are excellent (what happened to them?) - they do overshadow the Sellers part, even though he's perfect (William Goldman in his book The Season writes about the difficulty of getting an actor to play in the musical version of this story because every male star knew he'd be overshadowed).
Tom Bosley is perhaps a bit too nice as the supposedly neglectful father of one of the girls - he's so cuddly and affectionate and understanding you don't believe he'd leave his daughter (it's a bit too convenient to have him as this suddenly perfect dad while Mom is still a dragon).
One wonders if these things contributed to the film's underwhelming box office performance, though it has a strong cult. I think perhaps the main reason was the lack of a strong story - the girls become friends, meet Sellers, follow him around, then one runs away from home.
Maybe if you had the mother (Lansbury) have an affair with Sellers as the second act - then something coming out of that for the third.
The two lead girls are excellent (what happened to them?) - they do overshadow the Sellers part, even though he's perfect (William Goldman in his book The Season writes about the difficulty of getting an actor to play in the musical version of this story because every male star knew he'd be overshadowed).
Tom Bosley is perhaps a bit too nice as the supposedly neglectful father of one of the girls - he's so cuddly and affectionate and understanding you don't believe he'd leave his daughter (it's a bit too convenient to have him as this suddenly perfect dad while Mom is still a dragon).
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