Old Yeller

(1957, U.S.) color 83 minutes
Walt Disney Pictures / Buena Vista Pictures
Story by Fred Gipson (from his novel)
Screenplay: Fred Gipson, William Tunberg
Music: Oliver Wallace
Cinematography: Charles P. Boyle
Produced by Bill Anderson, Walt Disney
Directed by Robert Stevenson

With: Dorothy McGuire (Katie Coates), Fess Parker (Jim Coates), Jeff York (Bud Searcy), Chuck Connors (Burn Sanderson), Beverly Washburn (Lisbeth Searcy), Tommy Kirk (Travis Coates), Kevin Corcoran (Arliss Coates)

***

Plot Outline (IMDb): Young Travis Coates is left to take care of the family ranch with his mother and younger brother while his father goes off on a cattle drive in the 1860's. When a yellow mongrel comes for an uninvited stay with the family, Travis reluctantly adopts the dog. After a series of scrapes involving raccoons, snakes, bears and all manner of animals, Travis grows to love and respect Old Yeller, who comes to have a profound effect on the boy's life.

***

Young Tommy Kirk is the star of this legendary, maudlin doggie movie. After a hilarious opening credits sequence, in which the title dog chases rabbits accompanied by a horrible, "Davy Crockett"-like theme song, we descend into a virtually depressing, and surely frightening melodrama.

A rural family fends for itself after daddy leaves for the big city to sell hogs or cows or something. Mystical god-dog Yeller appears out of nowhere to act as surrogate father and spiritual healer through the family's tough summer. There's a lot of cruelty in this picture, animals killing other animals, law-of-the-jungle stuff that would not be tolerated today.

In fact, OLD YELLER could easily be dismissed as a mere string of increasingly traumatic events: dad leaves; a man (Chuck Conners) comes to take the dog away; a bloody, hair-raising pig attack; a wolf attack on Yeller, and his eventual infection with rabies.

To top it off, Old Yeller eventually goes mad, and must be shot by a bawling Kirk, who loved him so. You get the sense throughout this film that everything in the world is in the process of dying. The lesson seems to be "Everything you love, dies." The fact that Yeller's pup is around to relieve grief doesn't compensate for the sting of tragic experience. This is scary stuff for kids.

Video/DVD availability: VHS/DVD (Disney Home Video)