Cattle Drive

The idea here of having a bratty rich teen forced , by circumstances, to learn to take part in a cattle drive was later extended in "The Cowboys" to include a cattle drive in which all the wranglers were young teen or pre-teen novices, led by John Wayne and his cook. That's actually a more interesting film than this one. Both have an obligatory cattle stampede. Dean Stockton, as Chester, is unbelievably rude and demanding, while riding in a separate car from his father, who owns the railroad. The train stops to take on water in a very rocky desolate landscape. Meanwhile, Chester wanders off, chasing a lizard, being tardy getting back to the train, which unknowingly leaves without him. Instead of waiting around the water tower for another train, he wanders off into the rugged landscape. Eventually, he runs into Joel McCrea(Dan), chasing a fast mustang, which Dan has named "Midnight". It took a while for the 2 to get acquainted and agree on what to do about the boy's situation. At first, Chester wanted to get back to his train the quickest way. But that didn't look feasible, so it was agreed that he would be taught some of the skills of being a trail wrangler. It much helped that he had considerable experience riding horses in the East. However, he had to adapt to western-style saddles and riding methods. He showed his spunk in riding a particularly wild bucking bronco. Talkative Chill Wills is a treat as the chuck wagon master, whom Chester helps a bit... Dan notes that cattle are usually more restless at night when they are thirsty, being more easily spooked into a stampede. Unusually, there are no featured women. Also, there are no rustlers nor Indians to add drama. Besides Chester's challenges, the main drama comes from chasing and dealing with Midnight, and the cattle stampede, which is quite well done.

Moviecut—Cattle Drive

source: Cattle Drive

Bratty Dean Stockwell is travelling on his father's railroad. When he falls off the train, he's rescued by Joel McCrea who gradually tames the boy. Yes, it's CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS on the trail, with a fine cast, including Leon Ames as Stockwell's father, Chill Wills, Bob Steele, and even Harry Carey Jr. In a bit. McCrea, as usual, gives a fine performance, saying less than he knows. Stockwell is a bit annoying; I suspect someone showed him Freddy Bartholomew and the youngster tried to imitate him. The best thing about this movie are the compositions of the cattle n the trail, shot by Maury Gertsman. Gertsman shows up as a camera operator in 1934, lit a few shorts in 1942, then moved onto B features. He peaked in the 1950s with Universal, but the downturn in programmers drove him to television work, where he lit the set on Lucille Ball's series. He died in 1999 at the age of 92. On of the problems of looking at old westerns is the awful prints. B westerns were shot just as well as anything, but the prints were chopped up, worn out, and reduced to 16mm copies. Looking at a well struck copy like the one I saw is a revelation.

Synopsis: The spoiled young son of a wealthy railroad owner manages to get himself lost in the middle of nowhere. He is found by a cowboy on a cattle drive and the lad must start learning the hard lessons of working in a team if he wants to make it to Santa Fe. I was very entertained by this medium budget Western. It constantly teeters on the brink of being corny, but eventually comes through and delivers a credible story. Here's what I liked: There's an almost complete absence of shooting and violence. Very solid performances by McCrea as the wise and kind hearted "super cowboy" and Dean Stockwell as the young boy. Very good actions scenes with the horses and cattle. Good location shooting with beautiful landscapes. Filmed in Death Valley and Utah. Well told story with good character development. The story has a good heart. Interesting that there were no female cast members. The romantic interest was only referred to off camera. Not great, but you appreciate the honesty sometimes after watching five or six Westerns in a row where the female part is purely gratuitous. Good comic relief provided by Chill Wills. Normally I'm critical of movies with a poorly developed heavy, but here it's a plus. This is not a tense drama, but a warm hearted coming of age story. An overly threatening heavy would be out of place. Really cute ending. A little surprise twist. Here's what kept the movie from being better: It's too simplistic and seems overly geared to the 11 year old set. Hard to swallow the complete absence of Indians and Hispanics in this part of the country during this time period.

In addition to John Wayne & Randolph Scott, another actor who is synonymous w/the Western is Joel McCrea (he also was in Hitchcock's Foreign Correspondent & made some comedies w/Preston Sturges). Teaming up w/Dean Stockwell as a spoiled brat in need of some tough mentoring, the cattle drive serves as a perfect vessel to achieve that goal. Well made & has a great message of character building through hard work.

Fans of old movies will no doubt spot that this movies takes the premise and some of the plot elements from another movie - Captains Courageous (1937) - and transfers them to the old west. Instead of Spencer Tracy's Portuguese fisherman Manuel we get Joel McCrea as cowboy Dan Mathews and instead of Freddie Bartholemew as Harvey Cheyne we have Dean Stockwell as Chester Graham Jr. This relocated story lacks all of the excitement and raw emotion of the movie it is based on and it is notably lacking in subtlety in handling Chester's transformation from spoiled brat to polite, humble boy. Still, this movie is enjoyable enough if you're not expecting great things and easily passes the time.

Okay...so we all know Cattle Drive (1951) is Captains Courageous (1937) on dirt, and instead of cut fingers and constantly soaked clothes, it's saddle sores and an endless supply of beans and bad coffee. So what? It doesn't lessen the value of the story, nor reduce the entertainment experienced when watching this movie. It's a little gem of a story. That said, there are some less than positive attributes with Cattle Drive (1951). The worst of these are that, frequently, the movie and the characters seem rushed and even abrupt. This leaves the viewer wanting more ... more development between the two main characters; more interplay with the other hands during the drive, and more information about the "education" of the father at the end of the movie. Having seen this movie subsequent to seeing Captains Courageous (1937), it was difficult not to mentally compare the two while viewing this movie. To some degree, that actually worked against Cattle Drive (1951). Even at that, Cattle Drive (1951) is well worth a look.

Barely a Western save in setting, as there's very little action apart from horse and cattle stampedes and a couple of scraps between two lads.Unusually, no woman features, save in the distant background and when McCrea pulls out a photograph of his girl-friend; the makers are to be congratulated on resisting the temptation to introduce some love interest. The actors do well enough and there's some good scenery well photographed. The only thing that puzzled me was where the horse herd came from that the black stallion stampeded. It just seemed to appear, but I had a vague idea that it attached to the cattle drive, though this seems unlikely.

I think Joel McRae is a great Western actor. Dean Stockwell is one of the better kid-actors that there was in the 1940's and 50's. And, I always like color Westerns that have really good scenery. "Cattle Drive" has all of these but it comes up short for me. First of all, Dean Stockwell seems very 'wooden' in this role. In some of his other parts earlier on, he really played the characters well but here, he is reciting memorized lines. It's just not easy to believe he's the character he is playing... he's just Dean Stockwell reading lines. This is disappointing because in just the prior few years he did such a great job with roles in Kim!, The Happy Years, Down to the Sea in Ships, Stars In My Crown, and The Boy with Green Hair. Maybe by now he was just getting tired. He did apparently take five years off after this picture. Another problem with this film is the story. It is so much a take-off on "Captains Courageous" - only a very, very pale imitation. If you aren't familiar with that film, it too has a spoiled rich boy falling off a transportation conveyance of which his father was an executive, being rescued by men whom he regarded as beneath him, ordering them about, refusing to cooperate, and eventually becoming deeply attached to them, returning at the end to his father as a young man greatly changed for the better. In "Captains", Freddy Bartholomew lived and breathed the role he played, and Spencer Tracy as Manuel was brilliant. (Tracy I believe said that it was so easy working with Barthomew because he was 100% believable as the character he was playing.) "Captains Courageous" was much more interesting and exciting too. Nobody can tell me that whoever wrote this screenplay wasn't trying to cash in on the theme of "Captains Courageous". It would be okay except that this is such a transparent and lackluster attempt. This is probably a film Stockwell would strike from his record if he were able to do so. For all the promise of its ingredients, it just doesn't work. That's too bad. It could have been a lot better. Maybe even if there had been a juvenile lead who was more motivated than Stockwell seemed to be, it could have at least been average. If you want to see Stockwell in a movie where he is a kid who grows up in the company of men and adventure, watch him in Down to the Sea in Ships - it is so much better.