ironhorse_iv
I used to love this movie when I was a kid, when it aired on the ABC channel on TV. So, when I found the DVD, I had to see this film, once more. Sadly, it wasn't as good as I remember it. I really found it to be pretty mediocre, dated and kinda unfunny. I was really hoping for more from director George Schaefer, and screenwriter and author, Barbara Robinson. The movie tells the story of the Herdman family's delinquent kids, who are describe as the absolutely worst kids in town. They commit crimes like arson and shoplifting. They also fight and bully other children, mistreat animals, and talk back to adult figures. Not only that, they use foul language, very messy, drink alcohol and smoke cigars. So no one was prepared when the Herdmans arrive at the local church one Sunday-and decide to take part of the annual Christmas pageant. Despite protests from other church members, they are given roles in the Sunday school's Christmas pageant by new play director, Grace Bradley (Loretta Swit). To the surprise of everybody, the unsupervised, undisciplined children teach the town, that looks can be deceiving, and show the true meaning of Christmas, by supposing putting on the best Christmas pageant ever. This is where the movie fails. It promise us, a pretty good climax, and what we got was really a letdown. The whole pageant part was really, really boring predictable and way too preachy. In my opinion, I think it needed some more spice. It felt like any other Nativity play. The movie builds on the fact that the Herdman will probably tell the Christmas story in a nonconventional fashion, but you don't get that. There wasn't anything new. I think it's the movie fault. The movie never really establish the Herdman children that well. We never got to understand, why they were so interested in the play, in the first place. We never got to know each kid's personality, their likes and dislikes. I remember, there were like six children, but they were almost all alike. I really couldn't tell the different between them. I understand that, the town, mistakes them for really bad kids, but for a group of so-call extreme delinquent kids, they were pretty tame. It might be the fact that this film aired on television, so that's means that a lot of things from the novel, had to be edited down to fit a PG rating, so a lot of Herdman's hijinks never came to life. I was really hoping something like 1976's Bad News Bears mixed with 1983's Christmas Story with somewhat risky adult humor. This film humors, plays it pretty safe. It was disappointing. The script is pretty bad. It had this tell, not show, attitude. It's pretty much just a read though of the nativity story. The film really waste time on that, by telling the story, twice rather than showing us. The movie even has the nerves to drop subplots like snobby and uber religious Alice (Ocean Hellman), keeping taps on the Herdman's crimes. It has little to no payoff. The movie seem like it was written in the settings of the 1930s rather than the 1980s. Look at the way, the children dress in this film. The Herdman looks like something out of the Great Depression, while the CCD students look like retro conservative. This isn't what children look in the 1980s! For a movie that has adults that live during the counterculture and revolutions of 1960s, they act like unlikeable society puritans, most of the time. I didn't know calling Mary pregnant is blasphemy. They really overact. None of the things that the Herdman said about Jesus's story was really that offended. I was deeply disappointed in the church and its members. At no time did an adults take charge of the situation, really intervene with helping the Herdman children. Nobody seemed concerned about their welfare, whether the mother could use some assistance from the Church or whether the children were going hungry. It felt very odd. Even, the priest was kinda a jerk, in this film. I really didn't like the Loretta Swit's character. I really didn't sense that she really care for any of the children. I was kinda hoping, she was open-minded one, but she's just as close minded as the others. Instead, the best moral character in this film, had to be the father, Bob Bradley (Jackson Davies). He had a small part in the film, but everything, he said, make it worthwhile. He's the moral compass for this film. The child actors are pretty awful in their reading. The only two children that look like they had any hope in a future in Hollywood is Megan Hunt as the leader of Herdman, Imogene Herdman, who gave a pretty good performance. The other is the narrator of the piece, Fairuze Balk who play Beth Bradley, who went on to star in many cult-classic hits and some of my favorites like 1985's Return to Oz, 1998's American History X and 1999's Water boy. I think, one of the mistakes is having the film runtime, only be 48 minutes. It's far, too short for a proper movie. The producers could had put a little more meat to the story to make it, better. The DVD quality is pretty meh. It had that VHS copy quality. The colors look tone down, the pictures don't stand out, and it's seem a bit grainy. It was actually poorer than I expected. It's still watchable, so check it out if you want. The Herdmans were featured in two sequels, The Best Halloween Ever! and The Best School Year Ever, but as of this writing, I have yet to see those. Overall: I still enjoyed the story. It's just needed to be told a little better. The movie is pretty faithful to the book, but certainly not nearly as good as the book. Still, it's a good Christmas film to watch.
lightninboy
Many people have been involved in a church Christmas pageant at one time or another, so there was bound to be a story like this. Take a typical middle-class family (the Bradleys) involved in a typical middle-class church Christmas pageant, a little uptight and steeped in tradition, and throw in some lower-class ruffian kids (the Herdmans) who take starring roles. This movie is a little different from the novel The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, but that should be okay, because Barbara Robinson wrote them both. It seems like the book did say that the narrator figured that the Herdmans were going to hell, while the movie has her say she figured they were going to the devil. I suppose "devil" was supposed to be less offensive than "hell," but I'd rather have the narrator say "hell" like in the novel. Loretta Swit from M*A*S*H plays the mother directing the pageant. You might think this would be an unlikely role for her, but she does a good job.
