Rating: 
Summary: Will Make You "Cry"
Review: This movie will make you cry, but not for the reasons stated. I thought this would be another "Old Yeller" or "Where The Red Fern Grows", but it just doesn't come close. The main reason: the boy. He cries too much, and sorry to say, he acts like a girl. It was hard for me to overcome this and enjoy the movie.
Rating: 
Summary: A Timeless Classic That Must Be Seen
Review: This wonderful film is one of a handful that has the power to call me back to my childhood days and wrap me in warm memories of my Mom, Dad and little brother sitting around the television on Saturday night, watching the late show. From the opening scenes of this beautifully photographed movie I found myself caught-up in the intriguing post Civil War story of a boy and his pet faun and their fantastic adventures on a scruffy Florida Everglades farm. The film stars Gregory Peck, Jane Wyman and Claude Jarman in the lead roles, with some of Hollywood's best character actors in the colorful supporting roles. Peck gives an Oscar caliber performance as the warmhearted father who tries his best to make a better life for his family, with absolutely no help from the elements, which surround them. Jane Wyman plays his wife Orry, the hardened mother and wife who is so embittered by past tragedies in her life that she refuses to show any love for her one remaining child for fear of losing him too. And Claude Jarman plays Jodie the wistful young son who is just one summer away from adolescence and all the hardships that come with growing up. This story is chock-full of excitement and adventure sure to please the kids, and each of those adventures is also a great lesson on life that will stay with them for years to come. Just watching Jodie romp with his pet faun for that one fleeting summer is a joyous site to behold and the touching scenes where Orry finally begins letting herself love her son will bring tears to your eyes. And of course the heart-rending scenes of Jodie trying his best to get the yearling to run away so he won't have destroy it, all come together to make this movie one of the most emotional experiences of my childhood and I must say I believe I'm a better person for the values I learned from this timeless story. Experience this film with your children, you won't be sorry you did.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing, touching, wonderful
Review: Tonight, for the first time on PBS, I had a chance to see this wonderful movie. At 45, I have never seen it and am overjoyed to finally have the chance. I am in love with the young Gregory Peck, am astonished over Claude, and Jane reminds me too much of my own mother lol. The fawn must have bonded to Claude as he seems to really be attached to him. I want now to find out more about this wonderful young actor and about the fawn! How I never saw this movie all my life I will never know. This must be shown to children in school. I am touched beyond words, it is beautifully shot and enriching. Marjorie Rawlings deservedly won the Pulitzer and now I must read the book. I am laughing out loud, teary eyed and heart warmed at the same time. What a wonderful, wonderful movie.
Rating:
Summary: Beautifully photographed - a classic family film
Review: Urban children, like I was, may find this film especially tough. Farm-raised children will find much to identify with. This is a sentimental film about unsentimentality. It's tough to see people living lives so fragile, it is threatened by the existence of a single pet fawn who forces a choice between its life and those of this small family struggling to survive in backwoods Florida when the fawn can't be kept out of the vegetable patch.
But there's much to appreciate here about familial relationships, human change and growth, childhood innocence and awe, simple pleasures. The story itself is beautiful if heartbreaking. I love the film. It is typical of family films from the 40's and 50's - characters are done archetypically - the father's kind, moral, hardworking; the mother cold, strict, hard hearted; the child innocent, honest, ernest; the pet fawn cute and used as a vehicle for the boy's rite of passage into the brutal world of adults ...
Rating:
Summary: What is it about this film?
Review: When I grew up I stopped seeing over and over the movies I liked. Not this one. I do see this film over and over, but instead of getting numb, I become more even more affected. There are certain scenes, happy or sad, that are so evocative, so transcendent that, I'm embarrassed to say, I can feel tears well up in my eyes. I'm not looking at myself, or even the boy in the film. I'm looking at childhood itself - and its end. Find some quality time, darken the room, dispense with your sophisticated baggage. And let yourself go.
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