Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
This is not a great short film. Not at all. But it's not as bad as you would guess looking at its rating. I recognized that for quite a few of those old short films that were reviewed by Mystery Science Theatre 2000. People need to stop adapting other opinion with having watched a version where other reviewers constantly talk during the movie or having even seen it at all. MST3000 says it's bad, so it must suck. I've seen very early Kubrick films that were, in parts, worse than some of the short films mocked by MST3000. Don't you have an own mind?Anyway, in this 10-minute short famous Bonanza actor Lorne Greene tells us the story of a boy at the Canadian National exhibition two years after the end of World War 2. He's fed up with his parents getting him only from place to place that they actually want to see not really caring for their son's preferences. So he gets away and does what he wants for the rest of the day. On his voyage, he meets several grand sports champions, including boxing legend Joe Lewis and Barbara Ann Scott, until he returns to his parents in the evening, who already gave up finding him in the event visited by roughly 250,000 people.It's a short film with little significance today, but interesting to get a view into people's mindsets back in the 1950s. There's a good possibility that Charlie Pachter is still alive today (he would be roughly 70 years old) and I'm genuinely curious what he thinks about this film today.
Coolestmovies
The most interesting aspect of this expectedly dated educational film is the character of "Johnny" himself: he's played by Charles Pachter, who grew up to be a renowned Canadian painter, sculptor, designer and historian/lecturer whose works have garnered him an Order of Canada. His web site is cpachter . com . One of his most famous works is Noblesse Oblige, 1972, which depicts Queen Elizabeth riding a Canadian moose. ;) Pachter recently mentioned his role in this film during an interview on CBC radio, which adds a nice bit of closure after several years of seeing this picture via MST3K. As others have mentioned, the film itself is a rather bland--and thus typically Canadian--walk/run-through of Toronto's famed Canadian National Exhibition, where celebrities of the day proceed to excite and bore little Johnny in equal measure while he's separated from his parents (Pachter's real parents played his on screen parents).
Lee Eisenberg
Good, wholesome little boy goes with parents to fair, gets lost, and has all sorts of adventures. Yeah, we've seen this far too many times. "Johnny at the Fair" should be titled "Johnny at the Un-fair". And to think that Joe Louis got himself mixed up in this swill. No doubt the people of Canada are embarrassed that their country got portrayed like this (we can probably all agree that Michael Moore and the "South Park" guys have done a much better job looking at our northern neighbor). Fortunately, all is not lost: "MST3K" tore this movie apart. In their version, Johnny's negligent parents decide to abandon him.In conclusion, the movie by itself is 0/10, but the "MST3K" version is 10/10.
icehole4
Ah, people in 1947 got their kicks in so many different ways than the people of today. This short film is a prime example. It shows a young boy traipsing through the Canadian national exhibit of that year. A cameo by Joe Louis is supposed to be very exciting, but isn't. In the end, you just want the thing to end and don't care what happens to Johnny. Is that really Lorne Greene narrating? It sure doesn't sound like him at all.Avoid this unless you're watching the MST3K version.
AD
