The Red Fury

An young Indian boy falls off of a train and winds up in the care of a drunkard man. The boy shows the man his talent with horses and the man takes to him. The local people do not like the boy (because he is Native American) and they try their best to get rid of him, but the drunkard man decides to give up his booze and stand up for the boy!

Very much like "Little house on the Prairie" (and you can take that as a compliment)!

This is a very slow moving movie, but well worth watching! In fact, very good Christian value worth watching!!!!!!!!!

"The Red Fury" is the kind of family movie that is not made anymore. In a way that's a shame, because family movies like this often teach good values and are lacking in negative stuff found in modern family movies such as toilet humor. On the other hand, family movies from this period do often come across as dated in several important manners. The main way this movie is dated is with its pacing. The film moves extremely slowly, at such a slow pace that I think even audiences at the time were shuffling in their seats. Possibly due to the slow pace comes the second problem, that there isn't any big conflict. There's stuff like prejudice that's tackled, but its treatment comes across as very soft instead of more hard-hitting. The movie has wholesome good ingredients, but the end result is lacking in bite and deep feelings.

This is an excellent film for family viewing because it embodies the "old fashioned" values of honor, honesty, duty, fearlessness,and standing tall. It follows the mythological storyline of life, death and rebirth or resurrection. A young Indian boy sacrifices the thing he loves the most, his horse Fury, so new life may be born into the world, and in so doing he kills the prejudice surrounding him, opening the eyes and heart of his greatest enemy. I happened to attend the opening of this film in Salt Lake City. The theater was filled with children and their parents. There were not many dry eyes when the film was over. The film is slow paced like an old fashioned novel, but as you come to know and care for the characters you become a part of their story. There is one swear word in the film "s**t." It was added because the producers wanted a "PG" rate not a "G".

The Red Fury refers both to an unnamed stallion that rancher Will Jordan owns and a young Indian boy played by Juan Gonzalez works to tame. The kid is a passenger on a train with his father and falls off the train and on to the Jordan ranch.

Jordan's a crusty old cuss who's lost his wife and family years ago and lives alone and miserable on his ranch. The boy and the rancher don't take to each other right away, but when the kid saves the old man during a fire, they bond completely.

Bonding with the rest of the people in the neighborhood's another proposition all together. They've got typical western prejudice against Indians, led by rival rancher Cal Bartlett who also sees Jordan's Red Fury as a rival to his own horse that he's breeding to race. His daughter Wendy Lynne leads the kids in school into not accepting young Mr. Gonzalez.

There are two prominent female roles in the cast, former Warner Brothers television starlet Diane McBain, now a forty something storekeeper and Katherine Cannon as the schoolteacher from the east who tries to help the young Indian lad. In a small role is the skipper, Alan Hale, Jr. who plays the town doctor.

The Red Fury is not a bad family film, it's got some decent moral values in it, but the pace is way too slow, it drags considerably in the telling of its tale.

I wasn't sure what to expect with this considering the low rating but after watching it I don't think if those who left them loved horses and period films as I do had loved and understood them as I do they wouldn't have done it. To my mind this movie was wonderful and well acted, and the setting is incredibly beautiful. It's a story of love and kindness and goodness that are not all that common in most films these days. Juan Gonzalez did a beautiful job of portraying a young Native American boy who was lost in a world he didn't understand and which was against him at every turn, yet in the end he triumphed through his goodness of heart. If you love these kinds of films that were made in a time when the heart and goodness mattered, then I think you will love Red Fury.