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Asuyuka: Thank you! I appreciate your help a lot.
She was a teen in the sixties, but I was under the impression that she watched it as an adult. I didn't think to ask back when she first brought it up, and she doesn't even remember the conversation now. (It was a very off-handed remark, so I can understand why she didn't think it important and worth remembering it years later.)
Dr Dedman: You're right that the years don't match, so I don't think so either. But thank you!
There is an interesting article on Wikipedia here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter_influences_and_analogues
It looks at all kinds of possible Harry Potter influences, both acknowledged by Rowling and also possible influences that she has not acknowledged.
Some of these have been made into movies.
Most writers know that Rowling was just using fairly standard, well, tropes, that nobody really could claim ownership of.
Many Americans when they first read Harry Potter thought it was all new, and now are shocked that there is really a lot of literature similar to Harry Potter, and that these tropes are indeed Older Than They Think

Back when the first Harry Potter movie came out, my Mom told me that it seemed to be a remake of something older.
She says that she watched the movie quite some time ago on TV, and that the protagonist was also a wizard, also had a weird scar, but was in his late teens/early twenties. There was also a Wise Mentor Figure resembling Dumbledore, and there was also an Evil Wizard trying to kill the protagonist like Voldemort was.
Her memory of this has faded away with time, and she's been unable to tell me when exactly she watched it, but when she first told me about this she was very sure about having seen it.
Anyone's heard of such a film? It's been bugging me for years.
Edited by Mazz