Its plot, based on fact, concerns the fate of fourteen children in west London who are orphaned after the death of their single mother.

Everyone officially involved with this extraordinary family emerges sympathetically, from the hard-pressed and utterly dedicated social workers to the harassed priest watching the little monsters disrupt the orderly calm of his children's home, and even the professional foster-mother, pelted with her mashed potato as she lectures her unruly brood on good manners.

... [Although] the film does well enough on its own terms, it might have done better within a documentary framework"[5] Variety wrote: "Far from the oversentimental tearjerker it could easily have become, pic – which is based on a real-life story – emerges as a terse, intermittently humorous yet ultimately moving tale of the struggle of a 14-child family whose father and later mother both die, to work their united way against adversity and into society. ...

Uncompromisingly, Roland Stark's script and actor David Hemmings' direction ... refuse to let the kids become cute or winning: to the contrary.

Technical credits on the all-location (or almost) pic are fine, with only an obtrusive, over-insistent musical score providing a jarring note.