Jimmy, The Boy Wonder

Year:	1966
Country:	USA
Language:	English
Genre:	Children & Family, Musical, Cult
IMDB:	IMDB Page
Rating:	5.0 Rate
Collection:	Seen It Wishlist
Community:	1 Has Seen


Director	Herschell Gordon Lewis
Selected Cast	Nancy Jo Berg as Aurora
	Dennis Jones as Jimmy Jaye
	David Blight Jr. as Mr. Fig
	Karl Stoeber as The Astronomer
	Alan Rock as The Medicine Man

Comments and Reviews


Twistin 16th Oct 2021		Rated 5/10 What a difficult film to rate. For the average viewer, it's an easy 1-star and probably the worst film you will ever see. But for the cult movie fan, how far is too far? Over the years, I have seen this film name-dropped in various psychotronic zines, but I have always turned away and pretended to see nothing. As a fan of H.G. Lewis from way back, it just didn't seem conceivable that he could have a kiddie matinée in his filmography, not the guy who gave us gouged-out tongues, feasts made of internal organs, wacky fun-loving psychotic redneck ghosts, and the first horror film to delve into the wig fetish thing. The only saving grace is the fact that Lewis was at least a competent film maker, albeit in a grindhouse world. Certainly not in the realm of trash like "Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny"! WRONG. It is the first day of school and little Jimmy wishes time would stop, so in true unexplainable fashion, a magical (and portly) woman named Aurora appears, which leads the two on a journey to the world's end to restart time, while a ridiculous adversary, a wizard named Mr. Fig, does everything to hinder their quest. Along the way, the world gets tinted red and then blue (and then red and blue!), they get redirected to a land of slow-motion, stumble upon a fountain of laughing syrup, and inexplicably encounter a group of what we are supposed to believe are hostile Indians who look like frat boys with New England accents, that are ultimately consoled when Aurora creates a shower of beans. The injuns, Aurora, and Jimmy all eat uncooked beans from a cauldron while singing a terrible song detailing the sheer wonderfulness of this tasty snack. Oh, there are other songs, too, all sung barely in-sync and with the same animated gestures you might expect from a play performed by second graders. Like all of the very worst children's films of all time, the origin is yet again, Florida. Why is that? Every time a news story comes on about a horrible crime against children, kids buried alive, tortured by parents, etc. ...it always ends up happening in Florida. And it seems every time an atrocity from the kiddie matinée galaxy is unearthed from someone's basement, the filming location is Florida. I used to like that state when I was a kid and it was all about St. Petersburg, Tampa, Miami Beach, Busch Gardens, and that whole beautiful parrot thing. But now, it's a children's torture dungeon. Like the previously mentioned Santa film, in the middle of the action, we get whisked into another film (presumably because Lewis ran low on 8mm film stock), which turns out to be an imported cartoon. It teaches a lesson to Jimmy only because of H.G.'s clever dubbing skills, but even that lesson is highly suspect: Jimmy complains that he's only eight and a half years old, just a kid, tired and wants to go back home...he's famished from all of this action, but Aurora lies to him and tells him the story of another boy who never gave up. I guess she's pro child labor, I dunno, but the real labor pains are on the screen. It should go without saying that the acting is godawful. How they came to choose young Dennis Jones to star in the title role of a theatrical feature film is mind-numbing. He possesses no charisma, no speaking (or singing) talent, is visually as generic as a faceless window mannequin, and brings nothing to the role that might possibly involve a young viewer to identify or sympathize with him. Oh, like they were gonna hire an actor! My guess is that Lewis cast the son of the guy who owned the cheapo amusement park where they filmed this as a trade-out. I've seen stalks of celery give stronger performances. This doesn't look or feel like what you would expect an H.G. Lewis family film to look or feel like. More like John Waters. If you seek more convincing, heart-warming, feel-good family fare, you'd be better off surfing over to YouTube and searching for old Cracker Jack commercials. In conclusion, this may well be one of the best films ever made. 5 people found this review helpful. ✔︎ Helpful Review?

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