[The Boys of Paul Street / A Pál utcai fiúk], HU 1969, R: Zoltán Fábri mit Mari Töröcsik, Sándor Pécsi, László Kozák, 110 Min, OmeU, Mit Einführung durch Hungarian National Film Fund

Die Jungen von der Paulstraße (A Pál utcai fiúk) ist ein ungarischer Jugendroman von Ferenc Molnár, der 1906 erschienen ist und in zahlreiche Sprachen übersetzt wurde. Das Buch ist in den meisten ungarischen Grundschulen eine Pflichtlektüre.

Based on a popular youth novel by Ferenc Molnár, the film is about a war between two schoolboy gangs in Budapest in 1889. Rarely before has a movie caught the spirit of the book so well.
Nemecsek of The Boys of Paul Street is the simple soldier, pale, weak and small. He is the only soldier in the group of children, the rest of whom are all generals and officers. But he is also the bravest and most loyal: he sacrifices himself to defend the playground.
1969 - It was the first Hungarian film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
“It is a warm story of the ritualistic events prior to the battle, with principal interest focused on the youngest and smallest member as he reacts to the coming conflict. The Endre Bohem production is typically European in feeling and Zoltan Fabri’s direction of his and Bohem’s script is sufficiently fluid to maintain interest, discounting, of course, the lag in certain overwritten early sequences.” (Variety, March 1969)

Trailer: