Don't tell Mom!

Little Fugitive 1953 U.S. (80 minutes) written and directed by Morris Engel, Ray Ashley and Ruth Orkin; screenplay by Ray Ashley, photography by Morris Engel, edited by Ruth Orkin and Lester Troob, music by Eddy Manson.

Joey Norton, a seven-year-old teased by his older brother Lennie and friends that his rifle shot ‘killed’ Lennie, ‘takes it on the lam’ to Coney Island on a Saturday when their mother left them home alone.

This sets in motion a lyrically shot two-day adventure for each boy: Joey (Richard ‘Richie’ Andrusco), the ‘little fugitive’ of the title, and twelve-year-old Lennie (Richard Brewster) trying to find him before Mother (Winifred Cushing) gets back Sunday evening in Morris Engel’s ground-breaking documentary-style feature classic.

The film, shot with a customized 35 mm handheld camera, celebrates a child’s bygone outdoor life in a Brooklyn neighborhood where the streets, sidewalks, stoops and vacant lots were the playgrounds. It views Coney Island in its post-World War II heyday, but from three feet looking up. And most of this it does to various strains of ‘Home on the Range’ (with the Rheingold Beer jingle—aka Emil Waldteufel’s Estudiantina Valse, op. 191, No. 4—on a merry-go-round). 

It also captures classic Brooklynese in its natural habitat. (The ‘furshlugginer’ faces, body types, images and wisenheimer attitudes match Mad Magazine’s first generation of illustrated stories.)

‘That’s my kid brother Joey,’ Lennie says by way of introduction, watching Joey use chalk to draw a cowboy on a horse on the sidewalk outside their apartment house.

‘Everybody says, couldn’t you kiss him? So go ahead, kiss him’—Joey, now on a low ledge, turns smiling to the camera with a gooey fudgsicle on a stick in one hand and fudgsicle smeared around his mouth.

Lennie explains that he has to look after his brother when his single mother is at work, adding ‘Joey’s smart for his age, especially about horses. He don’t hardly think o’ nothin’ else. In your whole life, you never met a kid what happened to be so crazy about horses.’

Joey tags around with the older boys, listening to them talk about going to Coney Island the next day without him, among other things. As it turns out, Mother gets an emergency call that her mother is very sick. She must leave the boys home alone overnight. This also means that a disappointed Lennie has to stay home Sunday and keep an eye on Joey rather than go to Coney Island with his mates.

Later, Lennie and his friends Harry (Charley Moss) and Charley (Tommy DeCanio), playing with Harry’s father’s bolt action rifle, trick Joey into thinking that he accidentally shot and killed Lennie.

The dialog sounds straight from a Hollywood gangster movie:

‘You better beat it, Joey. We’ll give you an hour’s head start on the cops,’ Harry said.

‘Better hide, Joey,’ said Charley.

‘Take it on the lam, kid,’ said Harry.

‘Yeah, hole up ‘til this blows over,’ said Charley.

Then Harry hands Joey Lennie’s coveted new harmonica as ‘something to remember him by. He don’t need it no more.’

Avoiding policemen as assiduously as Alfred Hitchcock’s characters often do, the little fugitive, wearing a toy cowboy pistol in a holster on his belt, takes the subway to what turns out to be a child’s paradise by the sea—from Jolly Olga to the Wonder Wheel to the Parashoot [sic] Drop. He has six dollars Mother left the boys for groceries.

Joey seems to make good his escape with his first ride on a ‘Catch the Rings’ carousel, whipping his charging steed forward in a lovely and dramatic Eisensteinian medley of shots. He tests himself in games of skill: at ten cents a pop, six bucks makes for a lot of rides, booths, snacks and Pepsis.

And there are crowds of people at Coney Island in midsummer. Among them is Orkin, sitting in as a woman with a baby on the beach. Engel’s eye for people and informal but well-composed shots, and Orkin’s skillful editing heighten one’s sense of Joey’s adventure as much as the pleasure of watching this story unfold.

When Joey discovers a real pony ride, he finds that he is out of money. But his desire and resourcefulness are his guides; there is plenty more adventure to come. Early Sunday morning, Lennie gets a call from a concerned carnival worker. Jay, the pony ride man (Jay Williams), tells Lennie that Joey is at Coney Island. Lennie sets off to find him before Mother gets home.

Lennie’s day at the ‘Island’ produces a memorable sentence, among a variety of verbal and visual treats: ‘Hey mistah, you’re layin’ on my pants.’

The denouement comes in a late afternoon storm at the beach, which Engel shot beautifully high and low in its midst. And there is a happy ending to all this mayhem.

Engel and Orkin, husband and wife, each an accomplished and successful still photographer, later collaborated on their second classic Lovers and Lollipops two years later (1955). Engel released a third film, Weddings and Babies, in 1958.

The DVD set includes Mary Engel’s pair of short documentaries about her parents Morris Engel, The Independent 2008 (28 minutes), and Ruth Orkin, Frames of Life 1995 (18 minutes).