Seven Alone

Afte the explosion of sex and violence in movies, even more the twisted amorality of in the late 60's, there was a predictable backlash. By the early 70's, Hollywood had found a market for "nice" stories such as The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie, not to mention a bunch of other knock-offs that failed. This family-oriented counter-revolution extended to film, with Disney putting out lots of cheap, dumb-but-funny Kurt Russell movies and cheaper American International-like studios doing Grizzly-Frontier-Adams-Fremont in the Rockies productions. Some sucked pond water and some were even worse. Maybe the worst I've ever seen is Seven Alone, a story of a flock of 1840's era kiddies fighting their way along the Oregon Trail after their folks die (a blessing if human worth is based on acting ability).

I grabbed this flick off the shelf at the local library, figuring it would be digestible cheese for my family to watch. Sure enough, my wife is enjoying it and my 9-year-old is loving it. Because I'm a pain-in-the-keister critic, I'm bleeding profusely from biting my tongue in order not to turn family movie night into Mystery Science Theatre 3000 with me playing all three parts of the audience. I try to be a good dad.

This is so awful. I feel sorry for Dewey Martin and Aldo Ray, two accomplished and successful actors from the 40's through 60's. They must have been so very desperate for parts that they took the offer to do this hopelessly underfunded, underacted, and badly produced mess.

And yet . . .

There is some small bit of accuracy in this gunk. While another reviewer on this site had a small scale hissy over the movie being politically incorrect in its treatment of American Indians, I remind you that when a principal character refers to the natives as "dirty redskins," that's the least of the insults that were hurled at Indians by Caucasian settlers. They were hated and feared, and to our ancestors, the natives were a pestilence. Doesn't make it right or wrong, just accurate.

My recommendation would be to skip this dull nonsense (even if the book it was based on was a good work of history) and stick with the tasty cheese put out by the Disney dairy. The most you'll get is gas. Seven Alone gave me a splitting headache.

This was not a Hollywood blockbuster but that's o.k. It was a film based on the lives of a group of people who travel from the Midwest to the west coast and endure the hardships that went along with that time in 1842/43. The focus is on the Sager family and their children who are forced to survive on their own after their parents perish on the journey. I would not have watched this without my 7-year-old daughter but because it is based on a true story it held my interest. There weren't any Oscar-winning performances, or even anything that would be that captivating as far as acting skill goes, but if you can overlook that then you'll enjoy the film for what it is. There are no special effects like there are today, but it is a simple movie and doesn't require any. The simplicity is probably a blessing - one of the good things about this is that it is free of any grandiose love scenes. Instead, it is a look at what it might have been like to travel across the country at a pace that is slightly faster than a walk through rain or shine with little shelter, and dealing with things like dysentery and attacks by Indians. This doesn't give a very politically correct view of the native American Indian. But then again, Indians and white men had not even begun to learn to live together in 1843. This movie depicts violent behavior and dialogue that is very condescending toward Indians but I'm sure back in those days the actual dialogue and behavior was just as bad, and probably much worse. Parents should watch this movie with their children so they can teach their children that what they see is inappropriate in our society today.

One thing my daughter noticed was that these people didn't have the kind of recreational outlets that we have today and she asked a lot of questions. So while this is not a mega-movie chock full of stars and oozing with complicated effects, it is a simple and entertaining story of a real family's struggle to stay together. It can also be viewed as a teaching tool.

I never read the book that this movie's based on. It's about the Sager Party. The father, Henry, the mother Naome, and six children, starting with the oldest son, John, who leave Missouri for Oregon along the Oregon Trail in 1844. At the time they leave, Naome, John's mother, is pregnant with a seventh child. Catherine, born along the way, comes into a world of hardship. Henry dies of blood poisoning in an Indian raid. Naome, the mother, dies of pneumonia. The other members of the wagon train don't want John and his six brothers and sisters in the wagon train and order them to go back to Missouri. All the men in the wagon train regard John as shiftless and lazy. However, John refuses to turn back and is determined to get his family to Oregon. Along the way, they meet Kit Carson, and other historical characters. A couple of reviewers didn't like it. I liked it when it was on TV back in '70s. It should be remembered that back in the '70s, it didn't take very long for movies to make it to television from the movie screen.

A pioneer family heads out west. All of them are likable enough except for the oldest boy, John Sager, whom, if I were working on this family's farm, he would be found hanging from the nearest tree by nightfall.

A perennial bully, John Sager isn't worth the stink of the farts he pushes out. His lazy, lying, loathsome presence wouldn't make good fertilizer, but the parents (Dewey Martin and Anne Collings) haven't quite given up on the little sonuvabitch yet.

Other poor souls who must contend with John's evil and hateful self are Billy Shaw (James Griffiths) and Kit Carson (Dean Smith). Most of the children in the film are real-life siblings, but the best actress of these is the non-related little girl, Debbie Van Orden.

Passable family fare. Good performances by Martin, Collings, and Smith.

Enjoyed this great 1974 family film, which was so down to earth about everything that happened to people living in the 1840's and their love of the Mid-West and the trip they were willing to take all the way to the Northwestern part of the country. This film starts out with a husband and wife who have six children and are struggling to scratch the surface of the land in Missouri and the husband grows weary of trying to settle in this part of the country. His main concern is going West like most of his neighbors. However, his wife simply does not like the idea at all. Once a decision is made, the story becomes very interesting and at times tragic; another baby is born, increasing the family to seven. This is a very down to earth depiction of how settlers traveled with their families and had great determination and faith in God to lead them to a better way of living in this great land of the United States.