Home Cinema Review
The Lost World: Review of The Yellow Balloon
The Yelllow Balloon
Director: J Lee Thompson
Starring: Andrew Ray, Kenneth More, Bernard Lee
J Lee Thompson went on to direct such classics as Ice Cold in Alex and the original Cape Fear but this children’s film does have a few things to offer the viewer. The Yellow Balloon was Thompson’s second film, a lightweight confection about Frankie Palmer (Andrew Ryan), a young boy in London who causes the death of a playmate in a bombed-out ruin and is wracked with guilt. He falls in with dodgy spiv Peter Jones, who takes advantage of the boy’s guilt. There are some solid performances from Bernard Lee as neighbourhood copper Constable Chapman and Jones is decent as the spiv and it is intriguing to see a London just after the war, although it is obvious that much of it was shot at Elstree Studios. Thompson does show some of his later panache for directing here. While it’s not a great film, The Yellow Balloon is worth watching as an interesting curio of a bygone period
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