Danny , The Champion Of The World
Year: 1989
Running Time: 95 minutes
Yet another outstanding adaptation of a Roald Dahl classic, which was also read to our Standard Two class in primary school. I could not wait for the next thrilling chapter of Danny's adventure - for a ten-year-old the story was quite a gripping one. And, as with any Roald Dahl story, it was most gratifying to find out how the villain was thwarted by the good guy, who in a Roald Dahl story was typically poor, an orphan or mistreated by atrocious adults.
The film opens with the setting: "Somewhere in England". The year is 1955. The opening shots show a typical English countryside including an opulent manor house and pheasants roaming the sprawling grounds. We see a rotund man, the Lord of the manor, with a penchant for cigars and tweed ensembles - Mr Hazell. He desperately wants to procure the land occupied by a humble garage, owned and run by William Smith (played by Jeremy Irons), with a little help from his son, Danny (played by Irons' real-life son, Samuel). William refuses to sell to Hazell who responds with an ominous warning: "I always get what I want" (except clothing in any fabric besides tweed it would seem).
Danny and his father live in a modest caravan, which looks as though it could be a leftover prop from the set of Cher's Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves video. But father and son are more than happy with their small abode and Danny does not seem to mind sleeping in what looks like a cupboard. He attends school in the local village (the quintessential English village which makes you want to make your way to England). At the start of the school year Danny encounters a new teacher (also in tweed) who will be taking the senior class, a strict and surly man who believes in punctuality, order and discipline (you know, those things teachers could enforce before education became all about the children's rights). However, this guy seems to get a kick out of asserting his authority on the children, Danny being a favourite target.
One night Danny wakes up to find his father missing. He braves the darkness and fog to look for him. Eventually William arrives, looking like he has been a naughty boy. He admits that he has been poaching pheasants from Hazell. Danny is horrified! And he then finds out that his grandfather was also an expert poacher who invented the sticky hat method (not as dodgy as it sounds) - a cone is filled with raisins, which are like crack for pheasants apparently, and then gets stuck on the pheasant's head, making it easier to catch. William then makes Danny and himself a midnight snack comprising fried sausage on a rolled up slice of bread and cup of tea - surely not good for the digestion at that hour.
On another evening, William doesn't come home and Danny knows something is wrong. He takes a car to search for him, finding him at the bottom of a pit in the woods, his ankle broken. Danny rescues him before Hazell and his henchmen find them but Hazell is convinced that William will not be able to resist another attempt at poaching and then they will catch him.
In the meantime, William is toying with the idea of removing all 600 - 700 pheasants from Hazell's land ahead of an important hunt. But how? Enter Danny, the champion of the world, who comes up with a plan to fill hundreds of raisins with crushed sedatives (raisins which they painstakingly cut open and sew up one by one), effectively knocking the pheasants out, humiliating an infuriated Hazell and saving the entire village. "Three cheers for Danny!"
The story focuses on the unique bond between father and son and their ability to overcome whatever life throws at them. It suggests that sometimes it is necessary to bend the rules for the greater good. Finally, it celebrates the triumph of the underdog over the bully, which is something that any age can appreciate and applaud.
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