THE CHILDREN
- Original screen play by Marilyn.
LOG LINE: The Children is a
film about four families and their adventures with precocious, original
thinking children; eleven year olds all from single child families who form
their own gang.
SYNOPSIS: Cheryl and Bob are
the proud parents of Ricky, an adventurous spirit and a keen observation of
people. Cheryl
is a home maker and works part time; Bob is in fine furnishing craftsmanship. He surprises his son with a tree house custom built
for his gang of friends to visit at the child’s residence.
Jayne and Rob are a couple;
parents of Vikki who have had some marital coldness due to Rob’s long hours at
the wharf as a long shore man and his introspection away from Jayne to deal
with his moods. Jayne is a southern lady whose family emigrated to the USA from
England. Her older sister Zelda is the source of great stories she tells the
gang when Jayne bakes cookies and they visit her widowed sister.
Toni and Gill have and
interesting marriage with quick wit, deep love and a fascination with their son
Daniel who is a sensitive young man with a great sense of humor and has great
observations of life. Toni and Gill both have careers; Gill travels as an air
conditioner sales executive Toni is a lawyer. Toni is very close to her son and
he confides in her his secrets which proves useful when He meets Vice; a
mysterious man who appears to him in Jason’s yard in the middle of the night
during a sleep over.
Janette and Richard are
professional parents who are raising Mandy a precocious child who is very
assertive and proud to be a member of Ricky’s gang.
Zelda proves to be a source
of riveting stories about her youth in England where after Charlie’s death her
husband she kept three important artifacts; a letter, a watch and a candle stick all that have a story around
them. The letter proves to reveal a series of invitations that Charlie gave to
young Zelda for clandestine meetings prior to their marriage. The watch reveals
a twist of time that provides an apparition to young Zelda while Charlie is
getting home from another location. The candle stick reveals a spine tingling
murder tale on the estate of a friend of Charlie’s and Zelda’s; Frederick.
Jayne heads out with her
friends for Nellie’s birthday; they go to a local bar and meet a rock band
member Jake who invites them all back to a posh hotel suite to party. The women
are thrilled and join him meeting other band members; they party in their
skivvies, hot tubing and drinking. They return home to their husbands without
committing infidelity with tickets to the next big concert of the band in their
local city. Rob is concerned upon Jayne’s return home about this latest
escapade of hers and she surprises him with the VIP tickets for the whole
family. He lets go of his jealousy after learning Jake kissed Jayne in the hot
tub and looks forward to the concert with the family.
Meanwhile Bob helps a friend
move and is given four huge boxes of set props and costumes from a recent scary
movie and he decides to hold a yard party for Ricky and his gang with
decorations for the yard and tree house. Cheryl dresses up; fake corpses grace
the grass along with Mona the murder victim stabbed in the heart. The children
are thrilled and have a fabulous party over the summer holidays.
Vice a mysterious, frail,
elderly man finds out about this party and seeks out Daniel in the middle of
the night during Jason his friend’s sleep over. Daniel hears a coyote howling
and ventures out into the yard and finds Vice standing there. Vice gives him a bag that promises to put him
and his friends on an adventure. Daniel takes the bag inside and wakes his friends
up and reveals the contents: four bottles with four notes with addresses and times
only written upon them. The children keep this mystery a secret until after their
first arrival and coffee with another gab given to them containing one thousand
dollars. They split the money and wonder about the next three coordinates. They
mystery unravels as more money is found in the next two addresses with Toni following
the kids to endure their safety after Daniel confides in his mother about the loot
given to them by the strange acquaintance Vice.
A climactic event occurs when
the gang visits the Vaudeville Theater and are given the last loot; ten thousand
dollars before Vice passes away in the audience of the theater of heart failure
having completed the adventure with the children.
The children decide to go on
an adventure of their own creation purchasing pets and supplies for the rest of
the gang who do not have them to the surprise of their parents. All the families
dine together and finally the mystery of the money is revealed to them by the children
over dinner.
