Plot

The film opens with the death of a Kenyan villager by lion attack. The area is patrolled by Senior Game Warden George Adamson (Bill Travers), whose duties entail dealing with animals dangerous to either crops or humans. In company with his men, he tracks the lion and kills him. Sadly, the lion’s mate attacks, and the men are forced to kill her as well. Adamson carries the couple’s three cubs back to his wife Joy (Virginia McKenna). The smallest of the cubs is her favorite and she names her Elsa, after a childhood schoolmate. Several scenes involve the mischievous adventures of the cubs around the house with the Adamsons, and their servants Nuru (Peter Lukoye) and Makkede (Omar Chambati) having much ado following the lively trio.

The Adamsons tend the cubs to young lionhood, and, when the time comes, the two largest are sent to the Rotterdam Zoo, while Elsa remains with Joy. When Elsa is held responsible for stampeding a herd of elephants through a village, John Kendall (Geoffrey Keen), Adamson’s boss, gives the couple three months to either rehabilitate Elsa to the wild, or send her to a zoo. Joy opposes sending Elsa to a zoo, and spends much time attempting to re-introduce Elsa to the life of a wild lion in a distant reserve. At last, Joy succeeds, and with mixed feelings and a breaking heart, she returns her friend to the wild. The Adamsons then depart for their home in England; a year later, they return to Kenya for a week, hoping to find Elsa. They do, and happily discover she hasn’t forgotten them, and is the mother of three cubs.

Cast includes Surya Patel as the Doctor, Geoffrey Best as Watson, a big game hunter, and Bill Godden as Sam. The film also credits lions and lionesses Boy and Girl (siblings), Henrietta, Mara, Ugas, and “The Cubs”.

Production notes

George Adamson served as Chief Technical Advisor on the film, and discusses his involvement in his first autobiography, Bwana Game (U.K. title, 1968) known in the U.S. as A Lifetime with Lions.

The making of the film was a life-changing experience for actors Virginia McKenna and her husband Bill Travers, who became animal rights activists, and were instrumental in creating the Born Free Foundation.

Plot

The Coates family consists of father Jim (Fess Parker), mother Katie (Dorothy McGuire), older son Travis (Tommy Kirk) and a younger son Arliss (Kevin Corcoran). The family is so poor the children have never seen a dollar bill, other than worthless Confederate dollars.

While Jim is away on a cattle drive, a scruffy “yeller” mutt visits the family uninvited. Travis unsuccessfully tries to shoo him off, while his younger brother Arliss takes a liking to him. Travis eventually accepts the dog and a profound bond grows between the two.

Yeller’s owner Mr. Burn Sanderson (Chuck Connors) arrives looking for his dog but comes to realize that the family needs the dog more than he does and agrees to trade the dog to Arliss in exchange for a horny toad and a home-cooked meal.

Then one day, Travis and Yeller set out to trap wild hogs for marking. Acting on the advice of a neighbor, Bud Searcy (Jeff York), Travis tries to sit in a tree above the vicious pigs and grab with a loop rope, while Yeller tries to keep the pigs from escaping. However, Travis accidentally falls off the tree and into the pack of hogs below. They promptly bite both him and Yeller repeatedly. Travis escapes with a cut leg, but Yeller is even worse off. They both receive stitches and, while they recuperate, Searcy arrives to warn the Coates family of an apidemic of rabies, and to Katie’s horror, the likelihood that the pigs that Travis and Yeller were after might have them and they might have gotten. Katie quickly decides she has heard enough and sends Searcy off. Travis, however, consoles his mother and says that he noticed the pigs were not mad. Eventually, both boy and dog fully recover.

While defending the family from a rabid gray wolf, Yeller is bitten and eventually develops rabies. With a breaking heart, Travis is forced to kill Yeller to protect his mother and brother. In doing so, he takes a painful first step into manhood. Depressed from the death of his beloved dog, Travis refuses the offer of a new puppy fathered by Yeller. But then his father explains to him the facts about life and death. Travis understands and adopts the puppy, naming him “Young Yeller” in honor of his sire.

Reception

Bosley Crowther in the New York Times of December 26, 1957 praised the film’s performers and called the film “a nice trim little family picture” that was a “lean and sensible screen transcription of Fred Gipson’s children’s book.” He noted that the film was a “warm, appealing little rustic tale [that] unfolds in lovely color photography. Sentimental, yes, but also sturdy as a hickory stick.”

The movie went on to become an important cultural film for baby boomers. Old Yeller’s death is perhaps among the most tearful scenes in cinema. It currently has a rating of 93% on Rotten Tomatoes. One critic cited it as “among the best, if not THE best” of the boy-and-his-dog films. Critic Jeff Walls notes; “Old Yeller, like the Wizard of Oz and Star Wars, has come to be more than just a movie; it has become a part of our culture. If you were to walk around asking random people, you would be hard-pressed to find someone who did not know the story of Old Yeller, some who didn’t enjoy it or someone who didn’t cry. The movie’s ending has become as famous as any other in film history.”