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The Amazing Mr. Blunden (1972)

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Remember The Railway Children? Of course you do - it's a classic family movie that's on TV every other month. In fact, check your TV guide - it's probably on this weekend.

That movie was the first to be written and directed by evergreen British actor Lionel Jeffries. His second one is very similar, yet The Amazing Mr. Blunden rarely gets an airing on the small screen. Shame really, because in my opinion, it's actually a superior movie. Superior  and also darker - in the sensitive noughties, maybe a tale of ghosts and time travel just isn't parent-friendly enough for Sunday afternoon viewing.

The Mr Blunden in the title is the first person we see, a solicitor striding purposely to the squalid Camden home of Mrs Allen and her children Lucy and Jamie. He has an offer of work - housekeeping at a derelict stately home, one that's said to be haunted. Mrs Allen goes to the solicitor's office the day after, finding that Mr Blunden is no longer there (dead 100 years previously it transpires), but the job offer exists. So off the family goes to Langley Park.

In the gardens of the derelict house, the children see two more children. Unafraid, they approach Sara and Georgie, who they discover are also residents of the house, but from 100 years previous. They tell their story, of how they lost their parents, how their guardian, Uncle Bertie, sold most of the house's contents - and how he married a dancer, bringing Bella (Madeline Smith) and her evils parents (Wickens and Mrs Wickens, played superbly by David Lodge and Diana Dors) to the house. And how they aim to kill the children to claim their inherited fortune.

The children of the past have found a way to temporarily travel in time, telling Lucy and Jamie how they can do it too. And they need to - tomorrow is 100 years to the day that the children died in that house. Only Lucy and Jamie can save them. And possibly the mysterious Mr. Blunden.

Like all good period movies, this one hasn't aged a bit. And over 35 years on, this is still a superior 'feel good' family flick. Just about everything works, including the cast, the period setting, the suspense and the very clever storyline. Ok, you can second guess the ending, but I'll guarantee you'll stick with it. And if you do, there's a little twist at the end as a reward.

This weekend, there's likely to be a glut of family films on the small screen, mostly US made-for-TV movies featuring soccer-playing dogs or something equally as safe. The British film and TV archives are full of material made in an era when children weren't treated as idiots - maybe the networks can dig some of it out. And The Amazing Mr Blunden would be a good place to start. Failing that, just buy it.

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