The Kidnappers Foil

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The Kidnappers Foil is the name of several American short films, made by Melton Barker between the 1930s and 1970s. Each iteration featured small-town children as actors (a different small-town in each version), the parents of whom paid Barker a fee in exchange for appearing in the film.

Although the film was made dozens, perhaps hundreds, of times, only a few versions survive. The Texas Archive of the Moving Image holds a collection of these itinerant films and hosts Internet resources for those who appeared in them as children. The surviving copies were added as a group to the National Film Registry in 2012 being deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and recommended for preservation.^[1][2]

In the plot of the films, a young girl is kidnapped from her birthday party and rescued by a search party of local kids. The relieved neighbors celebrated with a party where youngsters would display their musical talents. A few weeks after filming, the town would screen the 15- to 20-minute picture to the delight of the local audience.

• The Kidnappers Foil (1930) at IMDb
• Texas Archive of the Moving Image site about Barker and the film

• Amanda Petrusich (2013-02-09). "The Legacy of a Camera-Toting Huckster". New York Times. Retrieved 2013-02-24.

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