Who Are the DeBolts and Where Did They Get Kids? (19 ) Movie Review

I wonder what's happened to Dorothy and Bob DeBolt and their large and enchanting family in the 20-something years since filmmaker John Korty won both an Oscar and an Emmy for making a documentary about their lives in Piedmont, California. Until it won the Oscar and ABC picked it up, television networks shied away from the project. They claimed it was depressing because many of the DeBolt kids are physically disabled war orphans, and Korty made no attempt to conceal how they adjust to the serious problems they face getting around the world. Two of the littlest girls sat next to me at the San Francisco International Film Festival screening, clearly UNdepressed, and giggling in delight at their movie antics. Korty, who won his first Oscar at 23 in 1964 for Breaking the Habit, has made some of television's best movies over the years: The People, Go Ask Alice, Class of ‘63, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (winner of nine Emmies), Farewell to Manzanar (an Emmy nominee), Forever, The Haunting Passion, Second Sight, The Ewok Adventure, A Deadly Business, Resting Place (another Emmy nominee), Baby Girl Scott, They Watch, and Redwood Curtain.

1978 72m/C Sydney Walker; D: John Korty; W: John Korty; C: John Else; M: Ed Bogas. Academy Awards ‘77: Best Feature Documentary. VHS