Old Yeller is a 1957 Walt Disney Productions feature film starring Tommy Kirk, Jeff York and Beverly Washburn about a boy and a stray dog in post-Civil War Texas, based upon the 1956 Newbery Honor-winning book Old Yeller by Fred Gipson. The screenplay was written by Gipson and William Tunberg and the film was directed by Robert Stevenson. The success of Old Yeller led to a sequel also based on a Gipson book, Savage Sam.
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" Blackmouth Cur mix visits the family uninvited and scares their mule, causing it to knock down a fence. 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. Still Old Yeller's history of stealing food from others has caused him a bad reputation and the family's neighbor's daughter, Lizbeth Searcy, says she hopes he doesn't get into trouble because he is going to have puppies with their dog.
One day, Arliss tries to capture a bear cub and the angry mother bear charges him. Yeller rushes in to defend Arliss and drives off the bear, earning the admiration of Travis and his mom.
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. Mr. Sanderson later warns Travis that there is a "hydrophobia" (rabies) epidemic affecting several animals in the area and to be cautious.
One night, Yeller and Travis sleep in the corn field to get rid of the raccoons eating the corn and the two bond while looking at the stars and eventually scare away all the raccoons.
Another event is when the family cow, Old Rose, gives birth and Travis tries to bring her and the calf home. Rose however instinctively charges Travis forcing him to flee. Old Yeller manages to pounce on the cow a few times before she can hurt Travis. She then allows Travis to bring the calf home under the watchful eye of Yeller.
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 rope them from up there, while Yeller tries to keep the pigs from escaping. However, Travis accidentally falls off the tree and into the pack of hogs below. A pig promptly slashes him and Yeller attacks the hog to rescue Travis. Travis escapes with a badly-hurt and bleeding leg, while Yeller is seriously wounded. Travis hides Yeller in a sort of rock den to protect him while he retrieves his mom. They both receive stitches and, while they recuperate, Searcy warns the Coates family of hydrophobia in the area and, to Katie's horror, of the likelihood that the pigs that Travis and Yeller were after might be infected. 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, vicious though they were. Eventually, both boy and dog fully recover.
The family soon realize that Old Rose has not been allowing her calf to feed and that she may be rabid. Watching her stumble about Travis confirms it and shoots her. While Katie and Lisbeth burn the body that night, a rabid gray wolf attacks and Yeller is bitten and eventually develops rabies. With a breaking heart, Travis is forced to shoot Yeller. 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 sired by Yeller. Around the same time, Jim comes home and, having learned of everything about Yeller, explains to his son the facts about life and death. Travis understands and adopts the puppy, naming him "Young Yeller" in honor of his sire.
Cast
Reception and legacy
Bosley Crowther in the New York Times of December 26, 1957 praised the film's performers and called the film "a nice 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."[1]
The movie went on to become an important cultural film for baby boomers.[2] Old Yeller's death is perhaps among the most tearful scenes in cinema. It currently has a rating of 94% on Rotten Tomatoes.[3] One critic cited it as "among the best, if not THE best" of the boy-and-his-dog films.[4] 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."[5]
In popular culture
Many references to Old Yeller can be found throughout popular culture, most of them centering on the effect of the film's ending on the audience:
- Film
- In the film K-9, Jim Belushi tries letting a dog know he is not valued by telling him that, as a little boy, when he saw the scene from Old Yeller where Travis shot the dog, he "did not cry!"
- In the film Stripes, Bill Murray's character uses Old Yeller as a way of bridging the gap between his platoon members asking "Who cried when Old Yeller got shot?" Everyone raised their hand and in this way the platoon members realized they are all similar despite their differences.
- In the film Garfield, Garfield watches the bit of "Old Yeller" (w/voiceover saying "C'mon, boy!").
- Television
- In an episode of The Cosby Show season 1, Bill Cosby as Cliff Huxtable uses the Old Yeller reference in his defense of being hard on Denise's boyfriends in a discussion with Phylicia Rashad as Clair. Clair reminds Cliff, "you know at the end of that movie, they shot Old Yeller". In a later episode, Cliff rents this movie for Rudy's video party, much to Rudy and her friends' disappointment.
- In the Family Guy episode "He's Too Sexy for His Fat", a cutaway gag features a parody of the movie, in which Old Yeller is shot because of accidentally erasing a message from the answering machine.
- In an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air entitled "Grumpy Young Men," Carlton breaks out a video from his collection, which just happens to be Old Yeller. Will tries to shoo him out in order to get some alone time with a girl named Valerie, but fails to do so, leading her to instruct him to take a walk if he's not interested in the movie, which he proceeds to do, but not before letting them know that "they shoot the damn dog."
- In an episode of Friends entitled "The One Where Old Yeller Dies" (season 2 episode 20), Phoebe watches the end of the movie and having never seen the ending of this or any other sad film, she refers to it as "a sick doggy snuff film".
- Music
- In the Gary Allan song "Tough Little Boys" there is a reference to the film: "Well I never cried when Old Yeller died, at least not in front of my friends".
- In the Confederate Railroad song "She Never Cried" a line says "She never cried when Old Yeller died, so do you think I'll cry when she's gone."
- In the "Weird Al" Yankovic song "It's All About the Pentiums", a reference is made to Old Yeller in the lyrics: "I should do the world a favor and cap you like Old Yeller / You're just about as useless as JPEGs to Helen Keller".
- Comics
- In the April 25, 1983 Garfield comic strip, the cat names Old Yeller as his favorite film, stating "I love movies with happy endings."[6] This is later repeated in the animated 1991 special Garfield Gets a Life, as well as in the 2004 Garfield movie.
- In a Sunday Pearls Before Swine comic strip, Zebra explains the end of "Old Yeller" to Pig, describing it as one of the saddest scenes ever filmed, and saying he couldn't imagine anyone not crying after seeing it. In the last panel, two crocs are sitting in a crowded theater yelling, "Eat da dog! Eat da dog!"
Blu-Ray Hi-Def
On October 7, 2009, Old Yeller and Savage Sam are both into double feature on Blu-Ray Hi-Def edition.
Notes
External links
