looking for a movie title

Looking for the title of the movie that I saw in early to mid 80s. It's about a boy wandering through a desert after surviving a private jet crash alone. His dad is determined to find his son, who briefly was able to communicate with his son via the radio from the crashed jet.

This is a tricky one! Then again, I'm not an expert on movies. Yet, I'd like to be as helpful as possible. Therefore, I have desperately tried finding something on the Internet, just any movie that would resemble your description. The closest shot is "Hatchet", based on a novel by Gary Paulsen. However, I haven't seen the movie myself and it says nothing anywhere in the plot about the radio communication between son and father. Besides, in Hatchet this little boy does not land in the desert, but somewhere in the wild of Canada. He is however the only survivor of a private plane crash. I have spent a good couple of hours trying to find any movie matching your description - to no avail. Are you sure it was a movie, and not a TV-series? Can you recall any more details, such as when and in which country was it made? What did the actors look like?

I am pretty sure the boy crash lands into a desert. There was a brief but definite radio communication between the boy and the father. The father, after the radio fails, makes printouts of instruction for his son that starts out by saying something like "I will find you" and drops millions of copies over the desert. The son eventually picks up a torn copy of the instruction but the paper that he picked up did not actually contain the instruction part. There is a scene of either a monkey or an orangutan picking up a copy of the instruction and reading (so I think the location is an African desert). Also recall a scene where the boy collapsing due to dehydration. Do not recall any actors. Pretty sure it wasn't a TV series. Grateful for your response, Terri.

Something's nagging at me, saying that Cliff Robertson played the father. I could be way off, though. A brief perusal of his films from that era gleaned 1979's "The Pilot", but I don't think that's the one you're looking for. Maybe somebody who looks like Cliff Robertson???

It beats me. I give up on this one. Would be interesting to eventually know which movie it is.

"Dirkie" 1969 released as "Lost in the Desert" in the states. Found it in the IMBD. Apparently there are quite a few people with childhoold memory of watching this movie. Thanks all. It's been bugging for last twenty years!!

Now, who can help me getting this movie on VHS or DVD? Have searched on the web, but no one seems to carry this old obscure movie made back in the 60s -- "Dirkie" (1969) released as "Lost in the Desert" (1970) in United Kingdom.

I wrote you a reply, but KMF just through it away in a bad manner.

The good news is i've found it the bad news is the price take a look for yourself:

http://www.shopasave.net/index.php?Type_Code=ProductInfo&Itemcode=V00194

Question answered.
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