Movie Question!!! Mid to late 70's maybe very early 80's. About a young blond white boy who lives in Afri?

Question

Movie Question!!! Maybe a Made for TV Movie or Foreign film like New Zealand or Austrian or South African maybe it was American but the actors where doing English/Australian accents for the movie. Made Mid to late 70's maybe very early 80's. I saw them both on TV around 1980-1981. One is about a young blond white boy, with English/Australian accent who lives in Africa

and is befriended by a young African boy & they are best of friends. For fun they get inside a old tire & push it down a hill. They do it many times then the African boy is killed by it. About the saddest movie I can remember. Also while I am on the subject there was another very sad movie about a young boy & his retarded adult friend who liked to play baseball with him yet all the other boys made fun of him so he turned his back on his retarded friend. That was a very sad movie also. It was done a little latter than the previous question about the boys in Africa. It came out in the late 70's early 80's and was for certain a made for TV movie or special. In fact I am certain it was a special that was fitted for a one hour time slot. I would appreciate any light on these movies they have haunted me for many moons. I would like to see what impact they would have now. Thank You For Your FeedBack.

Answer 1

1.Maybe it's  Forever Young, Forever Free (1976) starring Karen Valentine.

Here's the plot: Also known as Lollipop and E Lollipop, Forever Young, Forever Free is a studied piece of whimsy filmed in South Africa and Harlem. Norman Knox plays a white, blonde-haired orphan abandoned in a South African mission; his best friend is black foundling Muntu Ben Louis Ndebele. When Norman requires emergency surgery, he is flown to New York, where he bemoans the fact that he has been separated from his black chum. Whereupon, Muntu and priest Jose Fesser jet to the big apple themselves--but Muntu gets lost in the airport, and winds up in Harlem under the supervision of social worker Karen Valentine. Allegedly a demonstration of how racial barriers can be overcome by the innocence of children, Forever Young, Forever Free comes off as patronizing and not a little insulting, with the black child being regarded more as a pet than a person. http://www.moviekids.org/code/movie_page...

2. Maybe this one is Sling Blade (1996)--Karl Childers, now a grown man, is released from a psychiatric hospital where he has been hospitalized since the age of 12 for the murder of his mother and her lover. He returns to his childhood town and although being mentally handicapped, gets a job fixing small motors at a local repair shop. Karl befriends a young boy, Frank, and is soon invited by Frank's mother, Linda, to move into the family's garage. As a strong relationship develops between Karl and Frank, a confrontation builds with Linda's abusive and sometimes violent boyfriend Doyle.