Baxter! (1973)

TCM did a spotlight on Hanna-Barbera a while back. They're best known for their cartoons, but the company actually helped produce a couple of live-action movies too. One example of this was Baxter!.

The movie opens on a plane that's flying from Los Angeles to London. Roger Baxter (Scott Jacoby) is an adolescent flying with his mother (Lynn Carlin) to what is going to be his new home, although how she was able to get a nice place in London isn't quite mentioned. Roger's parents are getting divorced, and Roger is none too happy with the move, in part because his mom doesn't really care about him, or at least that's the impression he gets -- she seems to be more concerned with her own appearance.

Compounding the problem is that Roger has a speech defect. Like Kay Francis (who was rather too dead to essay this role herself), Roger can't really pronounce the letter R, which is a problem considering his name starts with one. That might have caused problems with the relationships within the family, but worse is that it's left him an introvert. How is he going to make new friends in London? And yet he does.

On the way up the elevator to their apartment, Roger and his mom meet the people who live one floor above them, Chris (Britt Ekland) and her French chef boyfriend, who just happens to be named Roger as well (Jean-Pierre Cassell), although his "Roger" is pronounced in the French way, "Ro-ZHAY". But it's enough of a connection for the boy to take to the couple, and since the elder Roger isn't a native English speaker, he has less of an issue with somebody having difficulty speaking the language properly. They even invite him for a weekend out in the country. There's also a girl about his age living across the street, who spies on him because he has a tendency to step out on the balcony wearing just his tighty-whiteys.

And then, at school, Roger gets sent to the speech therapist, Dr. Clemm (Patricia Neal). She's not just a speech therapist, but the sort of person who's seen enough children to know that the problems that show up in her office aren't always just physical problems. Considering how Roger's mom drinks too much and treats him like crap, while his dad is busy playing poker back in Beverly Hills, it's no wonder why young Roger is so badly adjusted.

He seems to be making progress, at least until he gets caught out in a cold rain and winds up with a case of pneumonia that sends him to the hospital. Dr. Clemm checks up on him, which is certainly understandable. But it leads to her understanding that Roger needs time away from his mom, who wants to bring him home as soon as possible, a sentiment that is also not unreasonable even if the movie paints Mrs. Baxter as being obviously in the wrong. This leads to things going even more badly for poor little Roger.

Apparently, Baxter! didn't do very well at the box office. Despite the small number of reviews on IMDb being almost entire positive, it's not hard to see why the movie wasn't very successful. It meanders, and while a lot of the characters are naturally unlikable, Roger came across as a bit too obnoxious for his own good at times. The production values also feel more like a 1970s TV movie of the week, ending with one of those nonsense freeze-frames that were in vogue in movies of the early 1970s.