Cinema: Gold in the Straw

Children, like cats, will watch anything that moves, and the fact has not been lost on makers of children's films. Hustling for small change, they dress shoddy actors in seedy costumes, bloat fairy tales to 1½-hour proportions and ship the results to Saturday matinees. In the throng, however, there are a few legitimate producers whose gold is all but lost in the straw. The best of them is Robert Radnitz, 44, whose movies—A Dog of Flanders, Island of the Blue Dolphins, And Now Miguel—are the sleepers of the children's film industry. All have won...