Cattle Drive

The lost genre being the good, challenging family/children's movie.

There were many series Westerns, and later TV variants like Cisco and Hoppy, but "Cattle Drive" is a lovely example of a cinema Western movie for kids but also to be enjoyed by the family. Shortish but with barely a false or draggy moment.

From the reviews already logged, it's obviously warmly remembered by those who saw it as children when it first came out.

Here in the UK it has been shown several times in the last few years and, as I write (March 2012) it's getting consecutive airings on a free to view digital channel.

No surprise: it's a terrific little film, one of two or three in similar vein that McCrea made around that time.

Joel McCrea obviously had an affinity with children, but, then again, wasn't he just a marvellous actor in whatever he did?

To the many points mentioned by the reviewers I would add another-the wonderful music.

Young Dean Stockwell is one spoiled kid, but with his father Leon Ames running a railroad, he's hardly got time for the kid. After Dean gets lost on the New Mexico desert when his father's train stops to take on water, he's found by Joel McCrea who's the top hand of a Cattle Drive going to Sante Fe.

That Cattle Drive is the making of young Dean. Under the tutelage of Joel, the kid turns out to be quite a good hand.

If the story sounds familiar like everyone else who reviewed this film, we all noted the obvious similarity between Cattle Drive and Captains Courageous.

McCrea and Stockwell had worked well together before in Stars in My Crown for MGM the year before. Though Cattle Drive is a good film, I can't recommend Stars in My Crown highly enough.

Look also for a nice performance by Chill Wills as the cook on the drive. A man definitely good to stand in with as we learned in Monte Walsh.

There's no violence in Cattle Drive, there's no women in it either. We do learn Joel does have a girl friend as he shows a picture of Frances Dee to all who will look.

It's a shame that Cattle Drive is not out on VHS or DVD it's a perfect family film to rent.

This a neat, colourful "Captains Courageous" variation, with veteran Joel McCrea and youngster Dean Stockwell combining really well. The moralising and the sentimentality are underplayed and the action is excitingly staged by underrated director Kurt Neumann (even if some of the 'wild horse' scenes are taken from an earlier Universal-International western - directed by George Sherman - called "Red Canyon"). All in all this 78 minute oater is well worth catching.

I was about 11 years old when my parents took me to the Fox Theater in Inglewood, California to see this film. It just so happened that Dean Stockwell was appearing in person before the film and was answering questions from the audience. He was very shy and an adult male did most of the answering. I remember loving this film - perhaps because the star was present - as a western adventure involving a big locomotive. I remember the relationship between the father, looking for the boy, and the son as being more realistic than I had seen in films. By this age I was a veteran film-goer, seeing my first film, a Walt Disney film, at age of six. I gotta get a copy of this film to re-live it.

Most Westerns, apart from comedies, are about conflicts- heroes versus villains, cavalry versus Indians, sheriff versus outlaws- which can only be settled by violence. "Cattle Drive", however, is different. It is the story of a spoilt teenager, Chester Graham Junior, the son of a millionaire railway tycoon, who is travelling through the West on one of his father's trains. When the trains stops briefly to take on water, Chester is accidentally left behind, but he is rescued by a gang of cowboys on a cattle drive. The men have no time to take him in search of his father; they insist that he must accompany them to their destination, Santa Fe, and that he must help them with their work if he wants to be fed. At first young Chester's arrogant and snobbish attitude alienates the men, but he soon learns the importance of humility, hard work and cooperation, and wins them over. One of the cowboys, Dan, becomes his special friend. Dean Stockwell makes a personable young hero, teaming up well with the veteran actor Joel McCrea. (McCrea tended to specialise in Westerns, although I always think of him as the hero of Hitchcock's "Foreign Correspondent").

The film is said to be based upon Kipling's sea-story "Captain's Courageous", but I must admit that I have never read that book or seen the 1937 film that was based on it. The plot, however, can be seen as a distilled and simplified version of the literary genre known as the "Bildungsroman", a German word which literally means "education novel" but which can also be translated as "novel of character formation". The basic plot of such a novel is "young man (or woman) learns important lessons about life", and Dickens's "Great Expectations" is a good English language example.

At just over an hour and a quarter it is a very short film, even by the standards of the time. It is, however, an example of two trends that were to mark the development of the Western in the fifties. Firstly, it is shot in colour against the background of some spectacular scenery, actually in Utah and California's Death Valley, although the action supposedly takes place in New Mexico. The generic "Wild West town" set used for Santa Fe bears little resemblance to the real city of that name. Secondly, there is a greater emphasis on character than on action, although there are some exciting scenes of a cattle stampede and a sub-plot about Dan's attempts, with Chester's help, to capture and tame a wild black stallion. There is nothing particularly deep or significant about the film; some much better character-driven Westerns, such as "The Naked Spur" and "The Big Country" were to be made over the next few years. By these standards "Cattle Drive" is a lesser Western, but it is still a watchable and entertaining one. 6/10