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“First of all, it was October, a rare month for boys.”<\/em><\/p>\n So goes the familiar opening sentence of Ray Bradbury\u2019s Something Wicked This Way Comes<\/em>. Bradbury would go on to tell a scary tale imbued in the promise of Halloween.<\/p>\n Don Coscarelli, a director who would become known for his horror movies, told a gentler tale illustrating the special feeling that October holds for boys and also imbued in the promise of Halloween.<\/p>\n The movie is Coscarelli\u2019s first, Kenny & Company<\/em>, a microbudgeted 1976 slice of life that follows 11-year-old Kenny (Dan McCann) through the three days leading up to Halloween. Because Coscarelli had no higher ambition than showing what it was like to be a young boy in mid-1970s suburbia, Kenny & Co.<\/em> captures its era better than any film I\u2019ve seen. I know. I was there.<\/p>\n When I watch Kenny & Co.<\/em>, I see my childhood. Not in specifics, but in the general sweep. You see how groups of two or three boys would join in bonds of firm friendship and spend after-school hours roaming their neighborhood on bicycles with banana seats and high-rise handlebars. Any little discovery could turn into an adventure. Our parents sort of knew where we were, but they didn\u2019t worry. We\u2019d make it home in time for dinner.<\/p>\n What Kenny & Co.<\/em> especially gets right is the anticipation of Halloween. In the 1970s Halloween still belonged to children. It was the one night of the year that kids had to themselves. It was our night to dress up like our favorite characters, to take to the streets and see what costumes the other neighbor kids were wearing. And it was our night to get lots and lots of candy! Halloween was our day of privilege. Adults hadn\u2019t yet claimed it as another excuse to party. Miller and Budweiser hadn\u2019t yet coopted it from Hershey and Brachs and whoever made Necco Wafers.There were no sexy nurse costumes, only sexy nurses. And we didn\u2019t care about sexy nurses yet. We were kids.<\/p>\n Halloween doesn\u2019t dominate the early part of Kenny & Co.<\/em> (except for the laughing, animated jack-o\u2019-lantern in the title sequence), but Kenny and his friends are preparing for it. They are getting their costumes together and deciding which houses to visit. They are at that wonderful age where they are old enough to go trick-or-treating without a parental supervision, yet they are still young enough to trick-or-treat without cynicism. (They\u2019re not the kids without costumes who show up on your doorstep with a pillowcase.)<\/p>\n The climax of Kenny\u2019s Halloween is a dare to enter the scary house on the block. Every neighborhood had a house the local kids thought was haunted. These houses were usually occupied by eccentric old women, and kids were convinced they were witches. I remember the house in my neighborhood. It was a stone house, and the stones were set in a wavy pattern. So of course a witch lived there. Years later this house would be on my paper route, and the suspected witch turned out to be a sweet old lady, though she was a bit eccentric.<\/p>\n The house in Kenny & Co<\/em>. is also occupied by an old lady, but not a sweet one. The house becomes the site of some raucous slapstick, which is about the only thing that rings false in the movie. Coscarelli wants to wrap it up with a memorable ending, so a bit of genuine peril and obvious storytelling can be forgiven.<\/p>\n As I indicated, much of Kenny & Co<\/em>. isn\u2019t about Halloween, it\u2019s about being an 11-year-old boy. The film is more a series of episodes than a story, and the episodes feel real. I was disappointed in Richard Linklater\u2019s Boyhood<\/em>, despite Linklater\u2019s experiment of filming his subject, Ellar Coltrane, over a period of 13 years. Boyhood<\/em> betrayed its title. Boyhood<\/em> isn\u2019t about boyhood, it\u2019s about the sadder aspects of adulthood as seen through a boy\u2019s eyes. I was hoping Boyhood<\/em> would be Kenny & Co.<\/em> on an epic scale, because Kenny & Co<\/em>. is truly about boyhood.<\/p>\n There are no abusive parents in Kenny & Co<\/em>., nor any unhappy ones or divorced ones. A lack of parental drama allows Coscarelli to keep his focus on the kids. The parents in Kenny & Co.<\/em> are benign presences of authority and wisdom. Yet they don\u2019t have all the answers, and their advice isn\u2019t always the best. When Kenny asks his dad (James E. dePriest) how to deal with a bully, his father gives the usual response that bullies are cowards at heart and will back down once you fight back. Kenny tries this, and it doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n Kenny & Co.<\/em> is more concerned with observations than story. Coscarelli\u2019s script has a couple of arcs: Kenny trying to outwit the local bully, a mainstay of all children\u2019s drama, and Kenny working up the nerve to hold hands with the girl he likes, Marcy (Terri Kalbus). Can you imagine a modern film where a boy\u2019s romantic goal is just holding hands? But the first time you hold hands with a girl is a big moment, and Kenny & Co.<\/em> remembers it well.<\/p>\n For the rest of Kenny & Co<\/em>., Coscarelli spies on Kenny and his best friend Doug (Michael Baldwin) as they get up to mischief. The pair have a Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn air to them. Kenny is the fair-haired all-American boy who is good at heart but has a slight inclination toward trouble-making. Doug is the dark-haired, fearless sidekick who challenges authority and knows how to exploit his friend\u2019s slight inclination toward trouble-making.<\/p>\n These two are no angels, and some of their behavior is alarming. Right after Kenny tells his dad that the local bully ripped his shirt, he and Doug convince their annoying younger friend Sherman (Jeff Roth) that a paper bag is filled with candy when actually there\u2019s a mousetrap at the bottom. The mousetrap trick seems a whole lot meaner than a ripped shirt. The worst of their pranks is leaving a lifelike dummy in the street so motorists think either or corpse or a drunk is blocking their path.<\/p>\n Keep track of the number of times Kenny and his friends nearly get themselves or others killed, and you realize this movie could not be made today. Studio bosses would freak out over Kenny and Doug\u2019s reckless skateboarding. But again, Coscarelli is being honest. Kids believe they are invincible and do stupid things. I used to ride my bike through piles of burning leaves in the fall.<\/p>\n Kenny & Co<\/em>. was probably the second film after\u00a0Bad News Bears\u00a0<\/em>where kids swore. Unlike in\u00a0Bad News Bears<\/em>, the swearing wasn\u2019t for shock effect. It merely reflected how kids talked then.<\/p>\n Kenny & Co<\/em>. took a wayward route to cult status. It barely had a theatrical release and probably would be forgotten if it weren\u2019t for HBO. The pay-cable movie network was still fairly young in the mid-1970s, not even offering 24 hours of programming, and while it advertised the previous year\u2019s box-office hits, it needed cheaper films to fill its schedule. It needed movies such as Kenny & Co<\/em>. Sometime around 1978 or 1979, HBO picked up Kenny & Co<\/em>. and ran it in what MTV would later call \u201cheavy rotation.\u201d My friends and I watched it many times, and it was an instant hit with us. \u00a0Here was a movie about boys just like us.\u00a0We quoted it: \u201cHow many pumps should I give it? Ten!\u201d<\/p>\n![\"image\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/31.media.tumblr.com\/369e27d457dbdf715a8afcb24ca3b7f6\/tumblr_inline_nea2wtNRXI1sqr9zc.png?w=700&ssl=1\")
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