This failed attempt to make a movie star of singer Wayne Newton saw him playing Mark Jonah Winters, a hitchhiking vagrant fruit picker accused of manslaughter following a car accident (in which bad guy Sal Mineo dies).
Escaping from the police, he takes refuge in a summer camp for blind children, working as a handyman and endearing himself to the kids – and to camp counsellor and budding sculptress Tracy (Diana Ewing), who is also blind.
The blind kids follow Mark everywhere, as a sort of Pied Piper figure until the law – embodied by potbellied Slim Pickens and canny Keenan Wynn – finally catches up with him.
All turns out well in the end, though, when a well-known local drunk, Wilfred Bashford (Mickey Rooney), clears Mark, who then returns to Tracy and his new “family.”
Mark Jonah Winters
Wayne Newton Nonna
Jo Van Fleet Barney Glover
Keenan Wynn Tracy Rutledge
Diana Ewing Wilfred Bashford
Mickey Rooney Jerry Taggart
Sal Mineo Mackray
R.G. Armstrong Scott
Slim Pickens Witney
Frank Schuller Maxon
Dennis Cross Little Joe Wilson
Brandon Cruz Kim
Erin Moran Richard
Teddy Quinn Cathy
Michele Tobin Velma
Susan Mathews Pepe
Ira Angustain Nina
Lilly Martens Brian Hofstadter
Butch Patrick Bertha the Lamb
Briana Deane Wilks
Coby Denton Jenkins
Joe Conley Sheriff
Fred Dale Sheriff
Don Familton Fisherman
Holger Bendixen Hobo
James Bacon Jackie
Jackie Kahane Ralph the Dog
Lord Nelson
Director
Gerd Oswald
Video
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