Movies like Napoleon and Samantha, from Disney in 1972, don't ask their audience to suspend their disbelief, they ask them to wad it up, dip it in kerosene and throw it in the incinerator. They belong to the tradition of children's movies in which baffling and incomprehensible events all seem to happen around a couple of kids living in a one horse town. And the audience accepts it because, hey, it's a story about a kid and his pet lion. What else are you going to do?

Napoleon and Samantha stars Johnny Whitaker, already a big time child star from the TV show Family Affair, and Jodie Foster, a minor level child actress known mainly to astute viewers of My Three Sons and The Courtship of Eddie's Father. The two play the titular characters who open the film with a rather devilish act of theft. They sneak up behind the general store ran by that wonderful character actor Henry Jones, steal the empty bottles he will be returning for reimbursement and brings them into the store for redemption. Jones quips that he seems to pay for more bottles than he sells and proceeds to give Napoleon and Samantha their newly acquired candy from redeeming their stolen bottles. They spend a few seconds when leaving justifying it ("We gave him the bottles back, didn't we?") and that's that. This pair is cunning and we have to accept that if anything else in the movie is to make sense. What else is in the movie?

Napoleon asks his grandpa (Will Geer) to take him to the movies after coming home from his adventure with Samantha. The whereabouts of Napoleon's parents are never mentioned and only an uncle is floated as a possible living relative. Anyway, Napoleon and Grandpa head to the theater and catch another Disney movie, Treasure Island. When walking back they happen upon an aging clown and his lion. Begin wadding up disbelief now.

The clown explains he is retiring and heading back to Europe but can't take his lion, Major, with him because... well, just because. Dimitri, the clown, explains that the lion has no teeth, doesn't attack and, oh by the way, mind if he lives with you? Napoleon takes the lion, his grandpa dies, he secretly hires a young man, Danny (Michael Douglas), to bury him, and Danny readily agrees, no questions asked. Dip disbelief in kerosene.

Napoleon and Samantha take Major and run away since Napoleon no longer has anywhere to live and no one to take care of him. They end up at Danny's mountain cabin and he leaves them there with a man named Mark that he just met while he goes to get the authorities. Mark, it just so happens, turns out to be a homicidal maniac escaped from a mental institution. Disbelief, meet incinerator.

Napoleon and Samantha works because it is indeed so outlandish in almost every story respect yet so grounded in its acting and sentiment. Johnny Whitaker, one year before playing his most famous role in Tom Sawyer, gives one of the better child performances you're likely to see. He projects a real range of emotion quite uncommon for a child of his age and has no problem carrying the movie on his shoulders. While his two co-stars would go on to greater, more rewarding careers (literally, they both Oscars), Whitaker really does own this movie hands down. Even sharing the screen with a lion doesn't diminish his presence.

Jodie Foster, four years prior to her breakout role in Taxi Driver, and years before her Oscar-winning roles in The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs, was a talented child actress that seemed to fit the bill for best friend in almost every TV show and movie being made with a male child lead. She did fine work but, unfortunately for her, the most memorable part of the production was getting mauled by a stand-in lion for Major, who was pretty old and listless at the time. She was scarred badly but kept on going and completed the movie.

Michael Douglas was mainly known as the son of Kirk Douglas at the time. He hadn't begun his successful run yet on The Streets of San Francisco, which would start later that same year, and his first Oscar, as producer of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was still three years off, but his appearance on the screen confirmed he had the same onscreen charisma as his dad and no one should be surprised at the career that followed.

Johnny Whitaker, sadly, would not go on to a great career despite his obvious talents. He got involved with drugs and substance abuse took over his life. He pulled himself out of it, though, and used his experience to help others. To this day, he helps out other victims of substance abuse as a drug counselor.

Napoleon and Samantha is a movie about a young boy having to face reality in an unexpected and unwelcome way. That it does so by ignoring the existence of the parents, creating a fantastical "you have to take this lion, kid" situation, and wraps it all up with a homicidal maniac, just means it's a kids movie doing its best to keep everyone's attention from straying. For the most part it succeeds. Partly because there's a lion in the middle of it but mostly because Johnny Whitaker knew how to hold his own.

Director: Bernard McEveety
Writer: Stewart Raffill
Producer: Winston Hibler
Music: Buddy Baker
Cinematography: Monroe Askins
Editor: Robert Stafford
Art Directors: John B. Mansbridge, Walter M. Simonds
Set Decorator: Emile Kuri
Costume Designers: Chuck Keehne, Emily Sundby
Cast: Michael Douglas (Danny), Will Geer (Grandpa), Arch Johnson (Chief of Police), Johnny Whitaker (Napoleon), Jodie Foster (Samantha), Henry Jones (Mr. Gutteridge), Zamba (Major the Lion), Vito Scotti (The Clown), John Crawford (Desk Sergeant), Mary Wickes (Clerk)

by Greg Ferrara