My Friend Flicka (1943)

Nice effects though.

The acting in this movie is really good.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Blistering performances.

Roddy McDowall (Ken McLaughlin), Preston Foster (Rob McLaughlin), Rita Johnson (Nell McLaughlin), James Bell (Gus), Jeff Corey (Tim Murphy), Diana Hale (Hildy), Arthur Loft (Charley Sargent), and "Misty" ("Banner").Director: HAROLD SCHUSTER. Screenplay: Lillie Hayward. Adapted by Francis Edwards Faragoh from the 1941 novel by Mary O'Hara (pseudonym of Mary Alsop Sture-Vasa). Photo¬graphed in Technicolor by Dewey Wrigley. Film editor: Robert Fritch. Music: Alfred Newman. Art directors: Richard Day and Chester Gore. Set decorators: Thomas Little and Paul S. Fox. Costumes: Herschel. Equine supervisor: Jack Lindell. Technicolor color consultants: Natalie Kalmus and Henri Jaffa. Sound recording: Joseph E. Aiken and Harry M. Leonard. Western Electric Sound System. Producer: Ralph Dietrich.Copyright 23 April 1943 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Roxy: 26 May 1943. U.S. release: April 1943. Australian release: 6 January 1944. Sydney release at the Palace: 11 February 1944. Lengths: 7,970 feet, 88½ minutes (U.S.A.); 8,249 feet, 91½ minutes (Australia).SYNOPSIS: Amiable but dreamy-headed youngster gains maturity caring for a colt of his own. Setting: A horse ranch in Wyoming, 1941.NOTE: Sequel is Thunderhead, Son of Flicka (1945). Final film is Green Grass of Wyoming (1948).COMMENT: With its breathtakingly beautiful color location photography, its rousing music score timed to exciting vistas of horses thundering through attractive landscapes, My Friend Flicka provides an entertainment feast for horse lovers in general, Mary O'Hara fans in particular. True, Roddy McDowall makes an ingratiating young hero and the support players are capable enough, but it's the horses that are rightly the center of attraction - and they are skillfully directed and most appealingly presented. (The scene in which "Rocket" is killed is dramatically highly effective due to the deft editing of imaginative camera angles and camera movement).Of course the script does have a tendency to wash into sentiment (even the conclusion is not wholly up-beat, readying us for the sequel, Thunderhead, Son of Flicka). The dialogue also tends to be expressed in too obviously goodie-goodie clichés - particularly by the over-earnestly solicitous Swedish hired man, played somewhat exaggeratedly by James Bell. Admittedly the film doesn't go overboard, but the tendency to sucrose is there, finding its least enjoyable morphosis in Mr Bell. The rest of the cast is not so noticeably infected. Roddy McDowall manages to overcome the germ completely, while Preston Foster (who seems to have more than his share of didactic and instant information lines) is such a dull (if capable) actor anyway, it doesn't really matter. The same goes for Rita Johnson who does the understanding mother to a "T".The film is remarkably well directed by Harold Schuster. You won't find his name on any auteur lists. Director of the terrible Breakfast in Hollywood and the delightful (but routinely directed) Dinner at the Ritz, his career reached its highest point here and in Disney's So Dear to My Heart. His previous film to Flicka (signed "Charles Fuhr"), namely Bomber's Moon, is also not without interest.

This is a children's movie from a much simpler time. If you are looking for a movie that is going to be an attention grabber every second, well then you are looking for the wrong movie. This is a good movie for kids. If you are a horse lover it is a good movie as well. The handling is good and if you look into the back ground of my friend flicka and thunderhead you will see that not one horse was injured in the making of the movie, as well as the movie was given the American HUMANE SOCIETY'S blessing that no animals were harmed which can not be saide for the 2006 movie version which resulted in the death of not one but two horsers.. so if you are looking for a movie that is greaqt for the kids, no cursing, no violence, no hatred, no sexual inuendo, no underlying sex or violent themes, then this is a great movie.. it is about the love of a boy and his horse.. the 1943 movie also did not harm or kill any horse.. which the 2006 version did..nicole

I was 8 when I saw the film. As an earlier writer said, it was before TV and during simpler times. I loved it. I haven't seen it for 6o years but some scenes still remain in my memory. Today I took my grandchildren to see Flicka. I was disappointed to find that Ken had been replaced by a nubile teenage girl and the script has been changed dramatically. I wonder what kind of film would have resulted from remaining true to the wonderful novel. It seems that stories for children can't be written now without either animation or high drama or an element of sexuality as shown in the relationship between brother Ryan and Miranda.

I was about that, in a much quieter age, when I first saw Flicka. I was enthralled by the brave young hero and it left a very strong mark on me. Being young, and unsophisticated, I didn't have LOTR or Star Wars or any of today's high tech films to compare it to. I had Hoppalong Cassidy, the Cisco Kid and Roy Rogers, amongst other cowboy heroes. And then along comes this kid whose not a lot older than I was at the time being brave and honorable and fighting for what's right. I haven't seen it again since, and I'm not sure what my adult reaction to it would be. I'm sure the kids of today would be too sophisticated for the pleasures that I drew from it. So it goes....