Some years ago, The Daily Show had Dan Rather on for their election night coverage giving a series of absolutely ludicrous metaphors. Deliberately. He had a reputation for it, and he was leaning into it. And I have to tell you, the ridiculous metaphors he was using on that episode weren’t any more ridiculous than the dialogue from this movie. The screenplay was actually written by Fred Gipson, author of the original book—one of three he wrote about the family and about whom we will have more to say later. It’s still bizarre.
It is some time after the events of Old Yeller. Ma and Pa Coates (Not Appearing In This Film) have gone to be with her mother, who is sick. Travis (Tommy Kirk) is in charge of Arliss (Kevin Corcoran), who is not having it. Their neighbour, Bud Searcy (Jeff York), comes with his daughter, Lisbeth (Marta Kristen), to tell them that there are [list of ethnic slurs] in the area and to be careful. Travis and Lisbeth go after Arliss, who’s gone with their dog, Savage Sam (Tom Dooley), to hunt a bobcat. Unfortunately, they encounter the raiding party, who kidnap the three, leaving the dog for dead.
Obviously, this film was not the winner of the Racial Sensitivity 1963 Award. None of the Apaches nor the lone Comanche speak any English. They have abducted the three to make them slaves, including making Lisbeth into a wife for one of them. Travis merely wants to escape with Lisbeth nad probably Arliss, but Arliss is perfectly happy to sacrifice Lisbeth if it means he and Travis can get away and then bring people back to slaughter the entire raiding party. There is, on the other hand, a moment where Travis is forced to consider the humanity and mortality of one of the Apache.
I find myself a little worried by how bloodthirsty Arliss is overall. When we first encounter him, he’s so angry at Travis for expecting him to help do the farmwork that he’s hucking rocks at him. He will continue to do this whenever he feels put-upon for the rest of the picture. The boys’ uncle, Beck Coates (Brian Keith), will suggest that Arliss shoot his brother, assuming it will make Arliss back down, but it’s not a bet I would have made. That kid is not playing around. Even after being reminded that he’s killed animals with thrown rocks, it doesn’t stop him.
Tommy Kirk was twenty-two and Marta Kristen was eighteen. Honestly, his chemistry with her is better than it was with Annette Funicello. I’m not saying they looked like they should run right off and get married the way Lisbeth suggests, but at least you can believe that Travis has more than a friendship interest in Lisbeth. Meanwhile, there’s Corcoran, who was fourteen; his voice cracks a time or two over the course of it. This is one of five times he and Kirk would play brothers over six films they made together. If they didn’t have the hang of it by this point, they never would.
The weirdest part of the movie is the apparent need for comic relief; we have Bud Searcy, of course, from the last movie. He’s a lying, scrounging old fool. His only true asset is a pretty daughter. Then, as if that weren’t bad enough, he’s given a rival in Willy Crup (Slim Pickens), whose horses have been stolen. Their bickering will take up a lot of the last third of the film, along with the story of Pack Underwood (Royal Dano), whose family was killed a few years before the story by Native Americans and who wants to kill every last one in revenge. It’s a strange contrast.
The men are riding toward a gorgeous matte painting of a snow-covered mountain. Now, Texas isn’t fully flat or anything, but it’s still true that it’s a little out of place. There’s also a convenient cave at one point. Not much of one, but enough so the trackers are able get out of the hail, at least. And it’s quite the hailstorm—the cloud looks more like a tornado, and as the hail falls, it looks to be walnut-sized at least.
Actually, the best chemistry in the movie comes quite near the end, when Uncle Beck is talking to Lester White (Dewey Martin), the man who’s just arrived in Texas recently. There’s no real reason for their interaction that I can see. It just seems to be two minutes of a couple of men awkwardly flirting. I don’t have a problem with that, you understand, but it’s a little odd to see in a Disney movie of the era.
If Savage Sam has a happier ending that Old Yeller, the story of Fred Gipson is less happy. A year or so before the film, he was was slipping into alcoholism. Apparently, he suffered from frequent rage issues. One day, one of his sons came home from college to discover the family dog chained and clubbed to death in the yard. He returned to college in shock, then killed himself the following weekend. Gipson’s wife left him around the time this movie came out. Gipson lived about fifteen years longer, and I have very few details about what life was like for him after the series of tragedies. Perhaps that’s why he never published the final book about the Coates family, which didn’t come out until another son found it in his papers after Gipson’s death.
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