Where the Red Fern Grows (1974 film)
| Where the Red Fern Grows | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by | Norman Tokar |
| Produced by | Lyman Dayton |
| Written by | Douglas C. Stewart Eleanor Lamb |
| Based on | Novel by Wilson Rawls |
| Starring |
James Whitmore Beverly Garland Stewart Petersen Jack Ging |
| Narrated by | Wilson Rawls |
| Music by | Lex de Azevedo |
| Cinematography | Dean Cundey |
| Distributed by |
Crown International Pictures Doty-Dayton Releasing |
|
Release date
|
June 21, 1974 |
|
Running time
|
97 mins. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Where the Red Fern Grows is a 1974 film directed by Norman Tokar, based on the 1961 novel of the same name. It stars James Whitmore, Beverly Garland, Stewart Petersen and Jack Ging.
12-year-old Billy Colman is obsessed with coon dogs and coon hunting, but good dogs cost money his family can't afford. However, he sees several good dogs belonging to others, including a man named Mr. Kyle.
One day Billy's father mentions that there's a Bluetick pup for sale at his grandpa's store. Billy runs to see it, only to have the Pritchard boys talk their father into buying it just to spite Billy.
Billy's grandpa tells him that if he wants dogs he has to earn them. He begins working multiple jobs and finally earns the fifty dollars two puppies will cost. By that time, the price has dropped by ten dollars each.
Billy orders the dogs, but they arrive in Tahlequah, 30 miles away, because the mail stage won't carry live animals. Billy sneaks out of the house in the night and travels to Tahlequah.
He uses his leftover ten dollars to buy presents for his family; overalls for Papa, dress cloth for Mama and candy for his younger sisters.
Billy picks up the pups at the depot and carries them home in a gunny sack. He has to stop overnight and encounters a cougar which snarls at him until he makes a fire to scare it off.
The next day Billy passes a tree with the names Dan and Ann carved inside a heart on the trunk. He names the female puppy Little Ann and the male Old Dan.
Once Billy gets the puppies home he sets out to train them to be the best dogs in the Ozarks, using a coonskin to teach them to scent trail.
On the night of Billy's first hunt, the dogs get after a coon almost immediately but the coon foils them by crossing the river. Billy catches up with the dogs and tells them he's ashamed of them. He forces them to swim the river and pick up the track on the other bank.
The dogs tree the coon up an enormous tree, and Billy starts trying to chop it down with his small hatchet even though it seems impossible. Finally he calls on God to help him and a strong wind blows the tree over.
Billy's dogs become famous in that part of the country. One day, he runs into the Pritchard boys again down at Grandpa's store. They tell him about a ghost coon that runs on their land and which no dog has ever been able to tree. They then antagonize Billy until he bets them that Dan and Ann can tree the ghost coon.
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