Help identifying movie/book?

[marydell]

I just was reminded of a movie I saw when I was a kid - maybe a tv movie, maybe based on a book - about some parentless (or maybe just neglected?) children who put notes in the statue of Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, and an old lady who finds the notes and replies to them, and eventually comes to find the children, I think? Maybe when they fail to put a note up one day because one of them is sick? Anyway, I can't for the life of me remember the title, because I've got it in my head as Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, which of course isn't it, despite inspiring the statue in question.

Sound familiar to anyone?

UPDATE: Thanks, ebony14: It's "The Prince of Central Park," starring Ruth Gordon as the old lady. I don't know how I got Kensington Gardens worked in there unless there was a British version.

Comments

[anne]

I want to say I remember reading that. I know I never saw the filmed version.

[ebony14.livejournal.com]

It sounds like "The Prince and Princess of Central Park" - which is probably not the title, but that's how I remember it. A brother and sister run away and live in a treehouse in Central Park, scavenging the building materials from a construction site and living off of charity and minor theft. They come across an elderly woman and communicate with graffiti scrawled on the park bench on the bike path near their home. The climax involves them saving her from muggers. There may have been a British version of the film. IMDB lists no movie by that title, only "The Prince of Central Park," which sounds similar, but no sister is mentioned in the summary.

It also sounds familiar to "The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" but only in that it features orphans living on their own in weird circumstances (the park in this case, a museum in the other).

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Actually The Mixed-Up Files is about runaways, not orphans.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

The most benign sort of runaways, too...just needing a bit of a holiday, nothing wrong at home, nobody having a heart attack about them. I love that book.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Aha! It's "The Prince of Central Park," starring Ruth Gordon as the old lady (http://www.answers.com/topic/the-prince-of-central-park-film). I don't know how I got Kensington Gardens worked in there unless there was a British version. Thank you!