Cinema: The New Pictures, Nov. 1, 1954

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The Yellow Balloon (Marble Arch; Allied Artists) is a neat little British thriller about an ingenuous, sober-faced little boy in the clutches of a mean hoodlum. The child, Frankie (Andrew Ray), playfully grabs a chum's balloon, and in the chase sees his friend topple to death in a bombed-out London building. Having watched this episode, the villain (William Sylvester) moves in on the stupefied Frankie with the friendly assurance that the police would never believe the truth. The boy is thus caught up in a subtle blackmail game that ends, of course, in a wild chase through the city's underground tunnels. The cops close in just as the picture is about to end.

Actor Ray. a small, 15-year-old youngster with big eyes and bigger talent, moves through his nightmare in a state of shock, ready to believe, as gullible children often are, that the world of grownups is a fiery ogre waiting to feed on small boys in trouble. With Director J. Lee Thompson ably pulling the strings, The Yellow Balloon manages to picture for once the nameless and perhaps impenetrable barrier that separates loving, baffled parents from fear-ridden children.