Conincidentally, from old movies on Blu-ray to current miniseries on Netflix, most of what I watched this past week has involved children.

Newly released from Kino Lorber, 1969’s House of Cards, directed by John Guillermin (The Towering Inferno), is a fast-paced thriller about the kidnapping of an 8-year-old boy from a novel by Stanley Ellin (Alfred Hitchcock Presents with a screenplay by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank. Jr. (Hud). How this one fell under the radar is a mystery, but it did.

George Peppard Stars as a down on his luck American prizefighter who stumbles on an international fascist conspiracy in Europe that aims to form a new world order. Inger Stevens, in one of her last roles before her tragic suicide, is a wealthy but distraught woman who hires Peppard to tutor her son (Barnaby Shaw) after he finds him wandering and brings him home.

Interiors were filmed at Cinecittà Studios in Rome, but most of the action takes place over the rooftops of Paris and elsewhere including the Coliseum in Rome where the climax takes place.

Keith Michell and Orson Welles are the main villains.

Also new from Kino Lorber, and the only thing I saw that didn’t involve young children, is 1978’s House Calls directed by Howard Zieff (Private Benjamin).

This is a comedy reminiscent of 1971’s The Hospital that requires a major suspension of belief in which Walter Matthaugh not only plays a highly respected surgeon but also a ladies’ man that girls half his age find irresistible. His true love, though, is an outspoken older woman who is still 16 years his junior. She’s played by Glenda Jackson at her most charming.

Art Carney, who was only two years older than Matthau’s 58 in real life, is ill-used as the senile old coot doctor in charge of surgery. Richard Benjamin, who is supposed to be Matthau’s contemporary, was eight years younger than Matthau, ten years younger than Carney, and two years older than Jackson. Matthau’s son Charlie plays Jackson’s 15-year-old son. Confused? So were audiences of the day who stayed away in droves.

Sony has released a Blu-ray upgrade of 1955’s The Private War of Major Benson, directed by Jerry Hopper.

This comedy-drama is the best-known film directed by Hopper who later became a prolific TV director. It starred Charlton Heston as a martinet Army officer who is reassigned to an ROTC Academy at a Catholic Boys School as his last chance before dismissal.

Heston is good as the fish out of water Army Major who falls for the school doctor played by Julie Adams, but the film’s real star is Tim Hovey as the pint-sized 8-year-old who can’t keep up with the other kids.

The supporting cast includes William Demarest as the school’s custodian, Nana Bryant as the Mother Superior, and Sal Mineo as a student Colonel the same year as his breakout role in Rebel Without a Cause. It’s quite a charmer.

Reel Vault released an inferior Blu-ray of Michael Curtiz’s 1958 film, The Proud Rebel in September 2024 but Classic Flix released a hard-to-find restored version in May 2025 which I was finally able to obtain a copy of.

The film stars Alan Ladd as a former Confederate soldier living in the North just after the Civil War where he is looked down on by the locals. Olivia de Havilland is the local woman he falls in love with. David Ladd, the actor’s real-life son, plays his son in the film, a traumatized ten-year-old who loses the ability to speak after seeing his mother die in a fire that destroyed their farm.

The strong supporting cast includes Dean Jagger as the principal villain and Cecil Kellaway as a kindly doctor.

David Ladd, who later became a top Hollywood producer, was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor for his performance and won the Golden Globe for Best Juvenile Actor.

A bonus with this version is a new interview with David Ladd who says that although the film received strong reviews, it was poorly marketed by Buena Vista, Disney’s releasing company that sidelined it to concentrate on Disney’s own films which included Old Yeller.

Unchosen is a six-part miniseries new to Netflix in which Molly Windsor (She Said) and Asa Butterfield (Hugo) play members of a religious sect in which it’s difficult to determine who is good and who is bad, which keeps your interest as things shift. Irish actor Fra Fee is third billed as the mysterious stranger who saves Windsor and Butterfield’s four-year-old daughter (Olivia Pickering) from drowning.

Aston McAuley is Butterfield’s brother who wants to leave his wife and four children for a woman outside of the sect. Chrisopher Eccleston is the lecherous alcoholic leader of the sect and Siobhan Finneran is his fed-up wife.

Currently showcased on Netflix is The Signal, a four-part German miniseries first shown in 2024.

This one is quite intriguing as a father (Florian David Fitz) and his ten-year-old deaf daughter (Yuna Bennett) await the return of his wife (Peri Baumeister), an astronaut, who has just returned from space.

The story revolves around the possible arrival of aliens on a UFO that may or may not have been discovered by Baumeister whose flight home with 177 other passengers, including one of her fellow astronauts, has gone missing.

The daughter, unbeknownst to her, has information that will solve the mystery of whether or not aliens are on the way.

Hang in there. There’s a surprise ending that will leave you smiling.

Happy viewing.