The Boy with Green Hair
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Boy with Green Hair (1948) is a American comedy-drama film directed by Joseph Losey. It stars Dean Stockwell as Peter, a young war orphan who is subject to ridicule after he awakens one morning to find his hair mysteriously turned green. Co-stars include Pat O'Brien, Robert Ryan, and Barbara Hale.
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Plot
Finding a curiously silent young runaway boy (Stockwell) whose head has been completely shaved, small-town police call in a psychologist (Ryan) and discover that he is a war orphan named Peter Frye. Moving in with an understanding retired actor named Gramps (O'Brien), Peter starts attending school and generally begins living the life of a normal boy until his class gets involved with trying to help war orphans in Europe and Asia.
Peter soon realizes that -- like the children on the posters, whose images haunt him --he, too, is a war orphan. The realization about his parents and the work helping the orphans makes Peter turn very serious, and he is further troubled when he overhears the adults around him talking about the world preparing for another war. Peter awakens the next day and his hair has turned green, prompting him to run away after being taunted by the townspeople and his peers. Suddenly, appearing before him in a lonely part of the woods are the orphaned children whose pictures he saw on the posters.
They tell him that he is a war orphan, but that with his green hair he can make a difference and must tell people that war is dangerous for children. He leaves determined to deliver his message to any and all. Upon his return, the townspeople chase Peter, and even Gramps tries to encourage him to consider shaving his hair so that it might grow back normally. He agrees to get his head shaved, and the town barber does the job -- that night, however, Peter runs away. Later reunited with Gramps, Peter learns that there are adults out there who accept what he has to say and want him to go on saying it. He's sure that his hair will grow back in green again, and he will continue to carry his message.
Score
The song Nature Boy written by eden ahbez and sung by an uncredited chorus was a primary theme of the score for the motion picture. Nat King Cole's version of Nature Boy shot to #1 on the Billboard charts, and remained there for eight weeks straight during the summer of 1948.
Overview
The film was one of the last movies made at RKO Radio Pictures under production chief Dore Schary and one of the most idealistic fantasy films ever made in America. Completed for release after Howard Hughes took over the studio, The Boy With Green Hair never got the kind of push that it should have, or needed, to become anything more than a cult curio in American cinema. Director Joseph Losey delivered a Technicolor production, which might not have had an expensive cast but cost a fair amount to shoot. The movie's idealism, as well as its implicit criticism of American (and Russian, British, French, and Chinese) governmental policies (and the nuclear program), were about as harsh and confrontational as mainstream filmmaking got in 1948, even if these themes were couched in terms of fantasy and fable. The entire cast, including Stockwell, O'Brien, Ryan, and Hale, seemed to embrace the movie's message with genuine fervor, which only made the movie more potent.
See also
