Reviewing Movies

First things first, this is not a Disney Production like the first in the series and the lack of production values shows. None of the actors from the first movie show up in the second but then this sequel was made nearly 9 years before Disney version was shot making it a sequel to a version supplanted by Disney.

As Billy, Doug McKeon is nobodies' idea of a great actor. His break-through role was in On Golden Pond with two lions of the Cinema: Katherine Hepburn and Henry Fonda. Anything he might have learned from that experience failed to manifest in the series of sad-sack roles that followed his performance here is as lumbering as his gait in that prosthetic leg he wears.

The buddy who returns with Billy from the war romances his sister but the impending nuptials never materialize. We are reminded that this is the deep south when a trip to church sees the congregation singing a Christmas Carol with no snow in evidence.

To reintroduce the "ah shucks" factor of a boy and his dogs Billy borrows a neighbour boy of his age in the original to accompany him coon hunting. Somehow the interaction between man and dog is just not there in this movie. When Old Dan falls out of a tree to his death a patch of red fern is spotlighted beside him. Grampa insists on going on one last hunt even though he knows the exertion will probably kill him or even intending that it be so that he not be a burden to his grandson.

The plot here is so transparent as to eliminate any possibility of suspense. Billy leaves for a job offer out west and passes Little Annie to the neighbour boy before he goes leaving things open for a further sequel which this plodding effort ensured would never come.