Review of The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976) by Simon M — 03 Aug 2010

A small percentage of child stars careers actually survive into their adult years. There are exceptions and Jodie Foster is one who has acted(winning two Oscars), produced and directed throughout her life. Now in her late 40's, Foster is still a powerhouse and this young woman(14 years old at the time) was talented way beyond her years and it is no surprise that she was headed for a great career.

At the time of this movies release, Foster had already made a name for herself having worked in commercials, television and feature films since the age of 2. 1976 also proved very busy for Foster as she appeared in 5 feature films and received an Oscar nomination for her role as a teen prostitue in Taxi Driver.

With all the hoopla over Foster(Taxi Driver and two comedies Freaky Friday and Bugsy Malone) her performance in this smaller movie is quite remarkable, but unfortunately overlooked. Her role as Rynn playing a teen who commits murders is extremely sympathetic and poingnant.

The story deals with a young girl who has terrible secrets and will do anything to hide them from the nosy villagers. Cora Hallet(Alexis Smith) and her pedophile son Frank(Martin Sheen) start poking around and things quickly go bad. With the help of an officer and his magician nephew Mario(Scott Jacoby) Rynn is able to deal with the secrets she hides and the continuous harassment from Frank who abuses the poor teen relentlessly. The developing friendship of Rynn and Mario has sweetness and depth which definitely makes this less macabre as it could have been.

I did have some issues with a couple of parts in this movie: one involved a hamster and the other was a brief nude scene of Rynn which I later found out was a body double, but I still felt the scene was unnecessary.

Still, this is a very good suspense/thriller with a satisfying ending.