Challenge to Be Free

I recently watched Charles Bronson's "Death Hunt". I wanted to see if any other movie was made on the subject. There were two. One I couldn't find and the other was "Challenge to be Free". (I found this movie on Freevee.) The two movies tell the same true story but from two totally different angles. "Death Hunt" is a Charles Bronson/Lee Marvin action movie. A pretty good one at that. "Challenge to be Free" is a low budget family wilderness movie that often plays like a wilderness Dr Dolittle. They're definitely worth watching. "Challenge to be Free" is filled with good action and beautiful locations.

Like a lot of reviewers here I saw this as a boy. I was sick from school for about a week & watched this on HBO probably 50 times that week. I loved it and always wondered if it was a true story. This movie is mostly narration with a lot of animal interaction. It does have a Disney feel to it. Now at 42 years old (I saw this when I was about 11) it is a little dated but my wife & I were looking for movie on Encore and I saw this. She had never seen it and enjoyed it as much as me and felt sorry for Trapper & Old Timer. It had been 30 yrs since I saw this & the theme song has always been in my mind (even if its outdated by today's standards). Not sure if our kids would like this or not. I'm going to burn it to DVD since this movie is not available. For those interested in the real story look up The Mad Trapper on wiki. Glad to be reacquainted with this movie, Trapper & Old Timer.

About as good as you'd expect a low-budget film of this type from the 70s to be - that is, not good at all.

There was a lot of promise here but gets squandered by its "cheapness" and ridiculous scenes, questionable acting.

It had a Jeremiah Johnson feel to it at first, which drew me in. I enjoyed the way this Trapper bloke was towards animals - handfeeding chipmunks, becoming friends with wolf cubs, playing games with bears. It made me smile and laugh.

But then things go downhill. Way too much animal cruelty takes place and this god damn awful fake laugh of Mike Mazurki's takes over. It goes from weird Disney-esque 70s documentary, to poorly made manhunt movie in the wilderness.

Dead dogs, brutalised mountain goats, suffering wolves and an annoying main character all helped destroy things and make me question why I bothered giving this a go.

Just read the true story instead.

After reading the description I thought this is a movie I have to see.I searched it on the internet & found out it was based on the same story Death Hunt was based on which made me want to see it even more.Let me tell you straight away, if you're expecting another Death Hunt, forget about it.This movie version is the complete opposite of what Death Hunt was.After watching it or what I was able to watch of it, I'd say skip this movie & watch Death Hunt instead.Challenge To Be Free reminded me of some of the Disney movies I was forced to watch as a kid (I don't know why but at the time I HATED Disney movies) I watched about 35 minutes & after nodding off a bunch of times,I gave up & let sleep take over.Normally I'd fight sleep but this time I just did not care.If you want to watch the family friendly version of the story, watch Challenge To Be Free.If you want to watch the adult version, watch Death Hunt.I don't know about you but I prefer Death Hunt myself

This is an excellent true story, one of the gems of mountain man folklore, set in 1930's Northern Canada. The story of Canada's most famous northern manhunt, the Mad Trapper of Rat River and his running gun battle with the R.C.M.P. in the winter of 1931-32.

The Mad Trapper was thought to be named Albert Johnson, complaints were received about Johnson tampering with people's traps. When the Mounties were sent to investigate one was shot and wounded in an exchange of fire. They withdrew for help and later returned to the isolated cabin with a nine man posse and 20 pounds of dynamite. Meanwhile Johnston had reinforced the cabin and dug a pit under the floor. When the Mounties threw the dynamite at the cabin it blew the cabin apart, but when they went in expecting to find a dead or wounded Johnston he fought them off.

The Mounties withdrew again, and later when they returned to the cabin they found it abandoned. After a long search of the area, they ran into Johnston again, but one of the Mounties was shot dead in the exchange and Johnston managed to slip away.

The Mounties could not catch Johnston so they called in aerial surveillance. The plane picked up Johnstons trail and directed the Mounties to his location. The outcome of the ensuing gunfight was left a mystery, did he get away. Nobody knows.

This Mike Mazurki version is a rather sterile version, of the story. Made in a style akin to an early Walt Disney movie.

It's still a passable enough version of the mystery of the "Mad Trapper". Though maybe it dwells a bit much on the large animal cast.

It definitely invites a remake. It was called Death Hunt (1981).