Danny, the Champion of the World (film)
Danny, the Champion of the World is a 1989 film starring British Oscar-winning actor Jeremy Irons, with his son, Samuel, in the title role. It is based on the 1975 novel of the same name by Roald Dahl, and tells of a father and son who conspire to thwart a local businessman's plans to buy their land by poaching his game pheasants. It was filmed on location in Oxfordshire, mostly at Stonor Park, Henley-on-Thames.
The book is written in the style of a reflective memoir by an adult Danny, who the reader might presume grew up in 1950s or 1960s rural England: however, Chapter 6 reveals that the period was in fact the 1970s, given that the "Baby Austin" car that William and Danny were repairing was more than 40 years old, having been made in 1933. The film is set in 1955.
Plot
In 1955, William Smith, a widower, lives with his nine-year-old son, Danny, in a vardo behind the filling station and garage where he works in the English countryside.The land that the station and garage is built upon is coveted by businessman Victor Hazell, who owns the surrounding land and lives in a large mansion several miles away. He attempts to buy the Smiths' land, but William turns down his offers. Used to getting his own way, he begins a campaign of harassment, trying to force them off their land. Several inspectors from the local council come and assess William's property, and it becomes obvious that Hazell has sent them there by alerting them with false stories.
William decides to poach Hazell's prized game pheasants in retribution, using raisins to lure them out, but comes home empty handed; Danny had detected his absence and was relieved to see him return. Afterwards, he reveals to his son that he was out poaching, and had been a regular poacher in younger years, but until now had resisted the urge to poach following Danny's mother's death.
Days later, William informs Danny that he will be going out poaching again at night. Danny wakes up during the night, detects his absence, and decides to go and look for him. He heads for the forest at the wheel of a vintage Austin Seven that William had been repairing, but on the way there he passes a police car travelling in the opposite direction. The officers stop and turn around to pursue him after realising that the car was being driven by an underage driver. Danny continues to drive along the windy rural road and manages to shake of his pursuers by darting through a gap in the roadside hedges, and then leaves the car to head for the forest. He then spots two gamekeepers and hides from them, but then he hears them talking to someone in a deep hole in the ground; when they leave to tell Hazell, Danny goes over and finds that the man in the hole is William, who had fallen into there and has a suspected broken ankle. He manages to rescue him by tying a rope from the boot of the car to a tree, and pulling him up. Hazell and his armed game keepers return to find the pit empty, but hear the car starting and give chase, only for Danny and William to speed off into the distance before Hazell and the game keepers can foil them. They are, however, convinced that William was the man who had fallen into the pit.
The local policeman, Sergeant Enoch Samways, later receives word from Hazell that William has been poaching on his land and goes over to question him. However, he deliberately falsifies the report in order to claim that William is innocent, owing to his dislike of Hazell and the fact that he himself is very much into poaching, despite his position of authority.
Meanwhile, Danny has started a new term at school, with a new schoolmaster, Captain Lancaster, a strict disciplinarian who practices corporal punishment and detests lateness and cheating. He has already given Danny 1,000 lines as punishment for being late for school twice. When the headmaster, Mr. Snoddy, who is secretly rather fond of gin even during school hours, catches him caning Danny after another student whispered to him during class, he gives Lancaster a severe reprimand and tells him he will personally see that he is "out on his ear" if there is ever a repetition of his action; as he had made it clear to him on his appointment that corporal punishment was not permitted in the school.
Hazell announces a shooting event and invites several lords and other wealthy businessmen to come and hunt his pheasants, though several mistrust him. William and Danny decide to put a grand plan into action to poach all of his pheasants before the event, embarrassing him in front of the people he wanted to impress. Danny hits upon the idea of using sleeping pills, given to William by Doc Spencer for his broken ankle, to put the pheasants to sleep. They fill hundreds of raisins with ground-up pills in preparation. The next day, Captain Lancaster catches Danny sleeping in class and makes him run laps around the playground after school as a punishment. He escapes by climbing a wall; Lancaster attempts to pursue him, ripping his trousers in the process, and is caught in the act by Mr Snoddy. Lancaster resigns out of sheer frustration, much to Snoddy's delight.
Danny's plan goes off without a hitch; soon, the garage is filled with sleeping pheasants, whilst the villagers look on in amazement. Suddenly, Hazell and his shooting party arrive there, just as most of the pheasants start to wake up, and Hazell threatens to have Danny and William arrested for poaching and trespassing. Sgt. Samways arrives and, after being rudely insulted by Hazell, informs him and the crowd that no crimes have been committed; the law states that game-birds belong to the owner of the land they are on, which in this case is William. Angry and frustrated, Hazell drives off, amid jests from the locals, and loses the respect of his shooting party due to the lack of pheasants to shoot. Afterwards, Tallon, Hazell's putative partner in the new town scheme, reveals to everyone why Hazell had really invited them: so he could unveil his grand plan of building a new town on the land he owns, which would wipe out the village. Without owning the Smiths' land, his plan can't go ahead. William, Danny, and the rest of the villagers celebrate this news and Danny, as an act of kindness, releases the pheasants and lets them fly away to pastures new.