Story of a poor kid (Stewart Petersen) raising prize coondogs to hunt skins to sell to make racoon coats for the fashionable Cambridge college crowd, a legitimate and lucrative enterprise in the hard scrabble world of the Ozarks 100 years ago. If this movie were made today, PETA would be all up in an outrage, demanding animals be portrayed only in a mythical Peaceable Kingdom, in denial of all history to the contrary. Fortunately this was made in the unPC "70's, and is therefore a valuable gem of an author's semi-autobiographical sensitively detailed account of life in that world of hard-fought achievement and heartbreak.
Before the credits even roll, this proclaims itself a "Family Film", and indeed, there is one adorably young girl who plays a featured secondary role as the baby sister, but as a kid who cried myself when Bambi's mother died, there are a few bloody and violent scenes, not at all gratuitous and actually as sensitively done as all the rest, but with animals realistically tearing themselves up in the wild, and a child killing another child, albeit accidentally, I probably wouldn't take a child under 8-10. Warning: Animals probably Were harmed making this film.
Just one glaring anachronism: the silky, shiny, blown-out hair of all the cast members in a world where the time and effort to heat water made bathing a less than daily event, and shampoo was entirely unknown, All except Papa (Jack Ging) who wears a full, almost 'Fro wig on his head to rival Trump's Flying Squirrel The unintended joke is Papa makes his son a coonskin hunting cap, but nothing could rival the furry varmint perched on Dad's crown!
Lotsa TV actors here, lending an appropriately low-key, no glamour feel (to counter the shiny hair!) but James Whitmore as Grandpa is particularly good.
Before the credits even roll, this proclaims itself a "Family Film", and indeed, there is one adorably young girl who plays a featured secondary role as the baby sister, but as a kid who cried myself when Bambi's mother died, there are a few bloody and violent scenes, not at all gratuitous and actually as sensitively done as all the rest, but with animals realistically tearing themselves up in the wild, and a child killing another child, albeit accidentally, I probably wouldn't take a child under 8-10. Warning: Animals probably Were harmed making this film.
Just one glaring anachronism: the silky, shiny, blown-out hair of all the cast members in a world where the time and effort to heat water made bathing a less than daily event, and shampoo was entirely unknown, All except Papa (Jack Ging) who wears a full, almost 'Fro wig on his head to rival Trump's Flying Squirrel The unintended joke is Papa makes his son a coonskin hunting cap, but nothing could rival the furry varmint perched on Dad's crown!
Lotsa TV actors here, lending an appropriately low-key, no glamour feel (to counter the shiny hair!) but James Whitmore as Grandpa is particularly good.