- The journey of a homeless boy who tries to find his father, set in the 1920's in Holland.
- The film is based on the popular Dutch childrens book by Chris van Abkoude. In a Dutch port in 1921 lives a 10-year-old orphan boy known to everyone simply as Little Crumb (Ruud Feltkamp). His poverty-stricken mother Lize van Dien (Thekla Reuten) filled with shame was forced to turn him over to Mrs. Koster (Sacha Bulthuis) soon after he was born. Foster mother Mrs. Koster, who has cared for him since he was a baby, is very poor too, unable to support him by herself and proves to be a cruel taskmaster who insists Crumb bring her money before shell feed him. Somehow he must earn his keep out on the streets and can only go home after he has earned enough money. Crumb becomes an urchin stealing from the streets barrows and the shops to stay alive, sleeping in churches or huddled in doorways. Sometimes he has to run off from the police and he has earned the enmity of the most grownups around him. A stray dog becomes his constant companion. One day Mrs. Koster dies and on her deathbed she gives Little Crumb a locket containing the photographs of his parents. From this moment on, the boy keeps the locket with him wherever he goes. Wilkes the greengrocer (Hugo Haenen) knows the street gang all too well and decides to take in Crumb to live with him. To Crumbs surprise Wilkes develop a soft spot for him. Wilkes is working on a book about the adventures he had with his childhood friend. When he shows the boy a photograph of this friend, Little Crumb is gob smacked to see that this young man is none other than the man in the photograph in his locket: his father. His name, he learns, is Harry Volker and he went to America as a gold prospector a good ten years ago to earn his fortune. Crumb is happy living with Wilkes but his joy is short-lived when Wilkess market is destroyed in a fire. The boy once again is without a guardian and is sent to an orphanage presided over by a mean-spirited man. Life there is far from a bed of roses, but at least Little Crumb can live hoping one day his father would come back to claim him. Meanwhile, Wilkes set out to look for Harry Volkes and his mother has changed her name to Vera di Borboni and became a famous pianist. Who knows, maybe the future holds something better in store for him than a life on the streets and one day Little Crumb can meet his parents...
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