The poster that begs for secrecy

I love how the poster for the film The Boy with Green Hair (seen here) begs the audience to not tell why the boy’s hair turned green in order to save the surprise for other audiences.

Young Dean Stockwell is terrific in that film. Too bad the existing print is so muddy and awful, with TERRIBLE sound quality. If you rent it, just know it looks like crap and sounds awful.

It was a favorite of mine growing up, even though I had no idea how unbelievably important Dean Stockwell would one day be to me. To me, as a kid, watching Boy with Green Hair he was just a serious-faced bald kid in a police station, really upset about something, and my heart went out to him. He’s good beyond his years.

In the piece I wrote about Dean Stockwell for House Next Door, Bruce Reid (a fantastic commenter over there, I always look forward to what he has to say – so articulate!) listed in the comments-section his own “favorite 5” of Stockwell’s performances. He included Boy with Green Hair, saying:

OK, not obscure exactly, but I suspect its title leads a lot of people to snicker and pass it by on the video shelf. It’s a fine film, and Stockwell captures the anguish of its hero with a complexity and thoroughness beyond most adults. He’s so good here (and in many of his childhood roles) that you find it impossible to believe he could have continued acting as an adult, as if he was channeling some instinct that adolescence would surely crush out of him.

Yes, yes, yes.