Films on Friday: Old Yeller

Old Yeller is about a boy, Travis Coates, (Tommy Kirk) who finds and adopts a stray dog in post-Civil War Texas while his father, Jim (Fess Parker), is off in Kansas, collecting cattle for the family ranch.  Travis first encounters the dog in a cornfield and names him “Old Yeller.” Later, when Old Yeller’s habit of stealing meat from the smokehouse and robbing hens’ nests becomes obvious, Travis tries, unsuccessfully, to shoo the dog away.  But Travis’s annoying little brother Arliss—played by Kevin Corcoran, a specialist in such roles—rises to Old Yeller’s defense.  This doesn’t exactly endear him to Travis, but their judicious mother Katie (Dorothy McGuire) resolves the problem by declaring that Arliss should have the dog.

FREE.