Bobby Ware Is Missing (DVD)

It's every family's nightmare. Young Bobby Ware and Mickey Goodwin are two happy-golucky pals who trudge up an unstable mountain and suddenly get unlucky -- sliding down a reverse slope onto a ledge from which it's too steep to climb out. An unpretentious, tightly constructed thriller, Bobby Ware Is Missing harrowingly depicts the parents' desperation and the authorities' anxiously methodical search for the boys. Then terror strikes in the form of a ransom demand, derailing the search -- just as a demolition crew is slated to dynamite the mountain. Neville Brand, who the year before made a vivid impression as a savagely rebellious jailbird in Riot in Cell Block 11, switches sides of the law to play the efficiently coolheaded lawman heading the case. Arthur Franz and Walter Reed portray the two fathers at odds over balancing police intervention and the instructions of the "kidnapper." Thomas Carr, who helmed dozens of episodes of TV's Adventures of Superman and Wanted: Dead or Alive, directs this gripping tale that you won't want to miss.

• crime
• drama