Surprisingly incoherent and boring

hyped garbage

Don't listen to the negative reviews

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

this movie was just horrible it was so fake like most of the hunting scenes it was daylight and they tried to say it was night time its just didn't work.Take the fight scene with the mountain lion it was just a stuffed mountain lion and was just so fake.This movie was just a waste of time it was useless and a scar on the movie world it deserves what dirty rating they get.There were a few good scenes but not many when he got his dogs it was cute but billy overreacted when he gently pull the pups ears it was to rile billy up and it worked like a charm billy wanted to fight him after he touched his dogs ears.all around this movie was a horrible one and shouldn't be watched it shouldn't exist the book was 2000000 times better so there's my piece

Now here's a book that has never really gotten grand movie treatment. Maybe it's the fact that the book has so many elements to it that are hard to portray in movie form, such as heavy characterization and animal thoughts/beliefs, but it just seems that all the movies fall a little short.This movie version is clearly the best of a mediocre bunch, however. The casting is about as well done as could be expected. Stewart Peterson, in the first and perhaps the best role of his short career, is perfect as Billy. I also liked Jack Ging's portrayal of Billy's father.On the flip side, Beverly Garland, a heavily experienced actress at the time this movie was filmed, was horrible as Billy's mother. In the book, Billy is a borderline "mama's boy". His mother is written as overly-affectionate, constantly hugging and kissing him, much to his chagrin. In the movie, however, she spends nearly every scene chasing him with mops and threatening to whip him when he wants to finish cutting the tree down! To be honest, I question whether Garland had read the book, because she basically replayed her TV show "cowboy's wife" characters in the movie.A lot of the gorier sections of the book are cut down. It's hard for kids nowadays to think that a book could be more gruesome than a movie, but that is clearly the case here. The ax scene, in particular, is almost comically chopped down, no pun intended. The ending, however, is nearly as gut-wrenching in the movie as the book. Whenever I teach this book to 7th/8th graders, it's neck-and-neck for which draws more tears.From an artistic standpoint, some of the 70's film-making peculiarities are interesting, such as the fact that most of Billy's "night-time" scenes take place in broad daylight, even while Billy carries around a lit lantern! Overall, it's a passable movie and does follow the book quite closely. For teachers such as myself, there is no other option. The 90's version is an absolute mess, and this movie has enough nostalgic charm to keep its datedness in check. In other words, you won't feel guilty showing it to students!

Yet another fictional "memoir" of that final year before puberty, which seems colored for so many in sepia or pastel tones of impenetrable nostalgia. There are so many of them that if the films were laid end to end they'd undoubtedly reach the moon. For me, "Stand By Me" is the sine qua non, but as this one precedes it by more than a decade, perhaps it's unfair to compare. In any case, this is the tale of a 12-y/o boy during the depression who longs to acquire a pair of hound dogs with which he can hunt raccoons. Now I don't suppose my opinions about scaring small animals out of their wits and then killing them is particularly relevant here, but if you're going to extol the practice, then at least be honest enough to show it! Here, each raccoon is pursued up a tree, and then seamlessly transformed into a clean and bloodless pelt -- probably tanned and deodorized too, though I couldn't be sure about that. Other than that, I can tell you that the boy was a year older the next year, and that there's an old Indian story about a red fern and two lovers. I suppose if this kid was your grandfather, this might make a good story to loll you to sleep on a cold winter's night, but since he wasn't related to me I found I didn't care for or about him any more at the end of the movie than before I watched it. My advice: give this one a pass.

this movie was very old when my students and i watched it in the fourth grade after reading the novel. The first few minutes go really slow and then about thirty minutes in the movie it starts to get really great. I believe the only thing wrong was that some of the acting was poor. I give this movie a **-out of-*** !!!