Rauhes Land

Bought this one on Amazon Prime and it made my Day. Good clean Fun with all the elements of a Great Western. Morgan Woodward stellar as the Mean Heavy(Cross). Jack Elam brings his character (Thompson) to Life with the Best. Many close ups of Vera Miles and Steve Forrest as Mom and Dad (Tanner) and The Howard Brothers as THE BOYS ( Read their New Book). The Intention and Obstacle are clear as Story is About a Family that moves West and settles in new Town only to get into Water Rights Fight with Cross led clan.

Steve Forrest and Vera Miles star in The Wild Country about a family named Tanner with their two sons Ron and Clint Howard who homestead west from Pennsylvania to Wyoming territory to work a piece of farm land they've bought. At a dirt cheap price I might add.

Of course the reason it came cheap was because a very mean and nasty neighbor played by Morgan Woodward regulates the water flow. The Tanners struggle with Woodward is the main plot line.

Other than that The Wild Country shows a lot of problems that pioneer folk went through in settling the west. Among the many trials they endure is a tornado, admittedly not as well staged as in Twister, but I won't complain.

There are a couple of nice performances from Jack Elam and Frank DeKova as a pair of rustic characters with DeKova once again an Indian who help the Tanners out.

The Wild Country is a nice family product from the Disney Studio.

This is a good Disney family film about the Tanner family: Jim the father (Steve Forrest), Kate the mother (Vera Miles), Virgil the older boy (Ron Howard) and Andrew the younger boy (Clint Howard). They take on farming in the West in the late 19th Century or early 20th Century. There is a tornado in the movie. There is a fight over irrigation water, and it seems the father got killed in it. The Wild Country is based on the book "Little Britches" by Ralph Moody. Ralph Moody's parents lived in New England and moved to the Littleton, Colorado, area, where there was an irrigation fight and Ralph's father died of bad health. Ralph wrote a number of books about his life, including "Horse of a Different Color," which tells about his experiences in the cattle feeding business in the McCook, Nebraska-Oberlin, Kansas area.

When I was a child, I caught about the last third of this Disney movie on television, and it made a real impression on me. For decades afterwards, I wondered what the title was, but I couldn't remember it. But just the other day, I caught the entire package on Turner Classic Movies, and I was delighted to finally identify the movie. Seeing the entire thing as an adult, I think I can sum it up by saying that with the movie being an early 1970s movie from the Disney company involving a big city family in the late 1800s moving to the countryside, you can probably predict how most of it will play out. That's not to say that the movie isn't enjoyable, but you should probably be willing to put up with a number of familiar plot turns and characters. Those who do will find some nice scenery, pacing more leisurely than the hyperkinetic family movies made today, and some good messages about working hard and never giving up. It's not a Disney classic, but it's likable enough if this kind of thing is what you want. A word of warning, however: While the movie got a "G" rating back in 1970, there is some surprisingly harsh violence and intense situations that would unquestionably earn the movie a "PG" rating today.

It ends nicely enough, but everything up until that point is underwhelming.

A lot happens in 'The Wild Country', most of which negatively affects the protagonists. Despite that, I never really felt connected to the story and/or characters. The dialogue and behaviour for the latter is rather iffy.

Steve Forrest does a solid enough job in the role of Jim, though his wife (Vera Miles) and kids (Ron Howard, yes him, + Clint Howard) are more annoying than anything else. Jack Elam is mildly enjoyable as Thompson. Morgan Woodward plays antagonist Ab Cross, he is very one-dimensional in how he is and we don't really get any background on him either.

The plot surrounding Cross and the others is alright, just poorly executed in my opinion. It kinda felt like bad event followed by shouting followed by bad event followed by shouting all the time. There is one tornado scene which is very well shot, I will say that.

Overall, this isn't one I'd say you should rush to watch.