Old Yeller
A dog and a boy. Two naturally occurring auto-bonding and auto-binding entities. That’s what the the movie Old Yeller was basically about.
A small boy having a great time with a dog big enough for him to ride on. Should have been the perfect setting for a tale that ends with “and they lived happily ever after” except that the writer probably didn’t have a good night’s sleep before he wrote the finale.
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Produced more than half a century ago in 1957 by Walt Disney Productions, the movie Old Yeller was directed by Robert Stevenson based on the book “Old Yeller” written by Fred Gibson and adapted for the screen by Fred Gibson and William Tunberg.
The star in the Old Yeller movie was played by Spike. While in the original story, Old Yeller was a Blackmouth Cur, Spike was actually a Yellow Labrador/Mastiff mix rescued from an animal shelter. Trainers Frank and Rudd Weatherwax bought Spike as a puppy from the Van Nuys Animal Shelter in Van Nuys, California.
The Blackmouth Cur is a dog with many talents. Primarily used for herding and hunting, the Blackmouth Cur is also a very loving and gentle family dog more than ready to lay down its life to protect family and home. This breed originated from the Southern United States of America.
The Blackmouth Cur breed is big and strong. Males can weigh up to 100 pounds. The hair is short and comes in many colors, generally red, yellow, brindle, fawn or buckskin. The name comes from the dark pigmentation around the lips which also extends inside the mouth including the roof, gums and cheeks, tongue not included. The most outstanding characteristic of this breed is the total failure to retreat even when faced with insurmountable odds.
The movie Old Yeller was set in Texas, in the 1860′s, after the Civil War. It started with the head of the poor Coates homesteader family, Jim, played by Fess Parker, going off for a cattle drive to Salt Lake City, which would take him away from home and hearth for months. So it was time to promote his second-in-command to the hot seat. His sixteen-year-old son, Travis, played by Tommy Kirk, was now the man of the house. His mother, Katie, played by Dorothy McGuire, and his younger brother, Arliss, played by Kevin Corcoran, made up the rest of the manpower of the Coates family.
Soon, Old Yeller, portrayed as a stray in the movie, joined the team. He was not exactly welcomed with open arms at the beginning. In fact, Travis was more than ready to see him off with the business end of a gun. Eventually, Old Yeller was accepted as a full-fledged member of the team when he proved more than his weight’s worth in various confrontations with sundry intruders. Said intruders included bears and snakes. Small fry indeed as far as a Blackmouth Cur was concerned.
There were many heart-warming scenes which should bring back fond memories to anyone who had ever had the fortune of being the companion of a dog during his childhood. I particularly liked the part where Arliss took a ride on the back of Old Yeller. I had always wanted to do that but by the time I got my first dog, I was a bit too big for that kind of thing.
If, after watching the Old Yeller DVD, you should feel compelled to line the director and the writer up against the wall, I am sure you can find more than one dog-lover eager and willing to scrounge up a Gatling or two to bring matters to a more satisfactory conclusion.
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