From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler (1973) – Nostalgia Central

12-year-old Claudia (Sally Prager), 10-year-old Jamie (Johnny Doran), and infant Kevin (Bruce Conover) are the three children of the Kincaids of Madison, New Jersey.

Claudia is prone to flights of fancy – especially wishing that she lived the life of Lady Guinevere – out of which her father hopes she will grow.

Claudia senses an opportunity when she finds an unused train pass in the trash, good for her and one other child.

Needing her brother Jamie’s money – $24.40, which he obtained from years of gambling (and cheating) with a friend – but also wanting his company, Claudia convinces him to run away with her using that train pass.

With Jamie controlling the money, Claudia does not divulge her complete plan to him until it happens: they will take the train into New York City and live as hideaways in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where they can indulge in fantasies of others’ lives and worlds through the museum’s many exhibits.

Their basic tasks of finding the basic necessities – they bathe nightly in the pool in the cafeteria (with their underwear on) and regularly change their socks – while evading the museum’s security guards change when Claudia spots a sculpture of an angel in a workroom, and learns that it was sold to the museum by a Mrs Basil E. Frankweiler for a pittance of its probable worth, especially if the rumours that it is an authentic Michelangelo are true.

To validate the reason she decided to run away, Claudia – with Jamie by her side – has to find out the truth behind the sculpture. She believes that reclusive Mrs Frankweiler (Ingrid Bergman) has the answers.

George Rose is delicious as Mrs Frankweiler’s butler, Saxonburg, who – like most of her possessions – is slightly musty-looking.

The very funny Madeline Kahn is very funny in a cameo as a schoolteacher taking a gaggle of school children around the museum.

Released in the UK and Australia as The Hideaways. The film was remade in 1995 as a made-for-television movie starring Lauren Bacall.

Mrs Frankweiler
Ingrid Bergman
Claudia Kincaid
Sally Prager
Jamie Kincaid
Johnny Doran
Saxonburg
George Rose
Mr Kincaid
Richard Mulligan
Mrs Kincaid
Georgann Johnson
Schoolteacher
Madeline Kahn
Museum Director
Donald Symington
Museum Secretary
Linda Selman
Kevin Kincaid
Bruce Conover
Brucie
Mike Hammett
Counterman
Peter Turgeon
Guards
Frank Leo
Robert Packer
Larry Spinelli
Brendan Fay
John Gerstad
Museum Janitor
John Coe
Taxi Driver
Bruce Kornbluth
Workmen
Josip Elic
Tom Kubiak

Director
Fielder Cook