The question with any animal movie is, “How were the animals treated on the set?” And I can’t find any specific information about that. That I can’t makes me suspect that there wasn’t anything beyond “maybe it’s not a good idea to have fighting scenes where a cat goes up against a bear.” I doubt the porcupine quills were real—that would be a terrible plan, honestly, and having them be fake and stuck on would let you control things better. I’d also note that you never see them going in or removed. I can’t even see a claim that multiple animals were used, and that’s often the case in movies with animals.
Professor Jim Hunter (John Drainie) is given the opportunity to give a series of lectures at Oxford. Unfortunately, he can’t take his pets, so his friend, John Longridge (Émile Genest), agrees to take the trio. There is Bodger (Muffy), the elderly bull terrier; Luath (Rink), pronounced “LOO-ah” in the Irish way, the young golden retriever; and Tao (Syn Cat), pronounced “TAY-oh,” the Siamese. When Longridge goes off for a three-week hunting trip, he leaves the animals with his housekeeper, Mrs. Oakes (Beth Amos). Tao accidentally burns the part of the note telling Mrs. Oakes that they’re still there by knocking it into the fireplace, and Luath gets it into his head to go home, to the Hunters.
It’s generally agreed that the worst of the movie is the human interludes. I’m fond of the mellow narration by Disney mainstay Rex Allen, but not everyone agrees. People are also not terribly fond of the acting of Marion Finlayson as young Elizabeth Hunter. It’s also true that neither she nor Ronald Cohoon, who played her brother, nor Syme Jago, who played Hevi Numi, are much for acting. Though Syme Jago isn’t in the movie very long—none of the children are. Honestly, the adults aren’t the best, either.
Of course, all the animals are anthropomorphized. It’s not a surprise. But the one I had the most sympathy with was Bodger. We find out toward the end of the film that he’s the same age as Peter Hunter. Ronald Cohoon was thirteen at the time. Was the character the same age? Hard to say. However, even if the character is a year or two younger, it’s still not exactly the youth of a dog. To travel a couple hundred miles through the wilderness at that age when you don’t particularly want to get to the end of the driveway is a lot. Director Fletcher Markle isn’t exactly the most noteworthy director in Disney history, but he captured Bodger’s exhaustion well.
This is one that never made it to our rotation when I was a kid. My younger sister was a big fan of the remake, which means I’ve probably seen it in aggregate—bits and pieces over the years to add up to the full movie—but I hadn’t even seen this one that way. At least, I don’t think so. I don’t remember ever having seen it at all. It’s one of those that’s aggressively fine. To my knowledge, there isn’t anything actively wrong with it, but even having now see it, I don’t feel a strong urge to revisit it later.
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