The Castaway Cowboy

It has the benefit of being one of the most Kauai-intensive movies ever filmed. Not only was 90% of the movie actually made on that beautiful Hawaiian island, but it's actually SET there, too -- and there are very few movies both shot AND set in Hawaii.

The photography is excellent; the score is very good (but would have been better with a little more island influence), and the use of the Kauai locations, though limited to just a few, is first-rate. Garner is fine, and Culp makes a good, if foggily-motivated, villain.

However, the attitude toward the Hawaiians is painfully paternalistic, and there's a stupid, TRULY stupid, subplot involving "sorcery" and some extremely improbable caves, full of Tahitian statuary. Very bad idea.

Historically, it's a bit muddled; much is made of the idea that no one has found a way to load cattle aboard a schooner at this time. (Somewhere around 1870, I guess.) But over on the Big Island, this problem had been licked, and the founder of the Parker Ranch was already getting rich selling King Kamehameha's "big dogs.

If the script had been better, with a less predictable story, THE CASTAWAY COWBOY could have been a little gem. As it is, it's mostly a pretty time-passer.

Not bad, not good.

'The Castaway Cowboy' is a run-of-the-mill live-action offering from Disney. The casting is fine but plain, while the plot is alright if unspectacular and entirely predictable - especially the love story, which is one of the most obvious I think I have ever seen. The humour is decent, probably the best part of this.

James Garner (Costain) and Vera Miles (Henrietta) are a duo once again, following on from their exploits together in 'One Little Indian' a year prior. Eric Shea plays Booton, who I feared would be yet another annoying Disney kid actor but he's actually OK all in all.

The villains are extremely forgettable, in fairness Robert Culp (Bryson), Gregory Sierra (Marruja) and Nephi Hannemann (Malakoma) don't get much to work with - unexplored potential; solid actor choices.

This should be far more entertaining, especially as it's an adventure film.

Perfectly watchable Disney fare. You can read the lot points elsewhere. But two things stood out that I winced at, the Hawaiians were simplistic and stereotyped as childlike innocents lazy folks, and the cattle were treated atrociously.

I love the movies Holiday Inn and Song of the South, uh.... except for the Blackface Minstrel number in the former and the "happy slave" trope in the later.

Castaway Cowboy is really nothing special at all. I saw it as a kid in '74, and forgot its plot. Now I'll remember the plot because a lot more sensitive to the suffering of sentient beings, animals AND people.

I don't know why I didn't see "The Castaway Cowboy" when it was in the theaters. It came out when I was seeing all of Disney's movies. Oh well, I watched it tonight and I thought "The Castaway Cowboy" was a good movie. A lot of it was really good. It is a well acted, fast moving movie. It's not your average western and I kind of liked that.

James Garner ("Costain") is washed up on the beach of an Hawaiian island where he is befriended by a widow "Henrietta" (Vera Miles) and her young son "Booton" (Eric Shea). They are struggling farmers, and so he sets his mind to try to help them out. All of this much to the chagrin of local bigwig "Bryson" (Robert Culp) who has designs on their cattle and on the good lady. The ensuing adventure is actually quite clunkily put together. It mixes mysticism, romance and avarice before an ending that though innovative, I found rather impractical and even a little cruel. It is still quite a fun family film to watch, though - perhaps some of the attitudes to and of the locals might not quite fit nowadays, but viewed in the spirit in which it was made 50 years ago, it is typical of the Disney-style of message mixing adventure and morality, and is just about worth 90 minutes of your time.