Against a Crooked Sky

I saw this movie as a kid in the theaters. Once.

It haunted me for the rest of my life - at least until the internet came along with IMDB and I was finally able to recall the movie's title (due to Boone's presence). So I watched it again many years ago. I thought it stunk.

Still it haunted me. Here I am, watching it again!

Why? Can't say. Maybe it's the thing about the gold or the cheeseball climax or the weird, misplaced "Indians"... I still don't know why this films sticks in my head.

Maybe that, more than any other reason, is a good cause to watch. Perhaps every ten years or so. Maybe by the time I die I'll be able to figure out the allure of this ham bone production.

Watch it if you have ninety minutes to kill. But be warned: you won't get them back again!

When his sister is kidnapped , a young boy (Petersen) set out in pursuit Indians , leaving his parents (Clint Ritchie, Fannon) . He join forces with an alcoholic gold prospector (Richard Boone) who saves him of drowning and helps him to rescue the young girl . They are driven by an elderly Indian (Henry Wilconson) toward a location where lives a strange tribe . He must risk his own life by passing the proof of crooked sky and to avoid his sister to be killed from an arrow archer .

The film is a crossover from the ¨Searchers¨ (John Ford) , also with a pair looking for abducted daughter , and ¨MacKenna's gold¨ (J.L.Thompson) with fantastic inspiration in the rare Indians and the spectacular outdoors . Richard Boone as a drunk trapper is magnificent , he's usual in Western genre and John Wayne films (The Alamo, Big Jake, Shootist). The veteran Henry Wilconson (Last of Mohicans , Crusades, Cleopatra) is also excellent . The film gets sensational landscapes shot in Colorado River and Arches National Park , Moab, Utah . The motion picture was well directed by Earl Bellamy . He was a good professional who served in the US Navy's photographic unit in the WWII and directed more than 1600 episodes of television and catastrophe films such as : Fire! and Flood! and a sequel titled Walking tall II . Rating : acceptable and entertaining .

This movie has a plot just serious enough to keep the 4th - 8th graders hooked, and it's neither too violent for younger kids nor too boring for older ones. When the story begins, a brother and sister who live in the wilderness are discussing their mother's going to help another family where someone has a serious disease. She is risking her own health to help out the other family. The son says he wouldn't risk his life to save someone else's; his sister says 'I'd risk mine to save yours.' In a nutshell the sister gets carried away by Indians or some sort of tribe of savages, and her brother goes off in search of her. Along the way he meets Richard Boone who eventually helps him to find his sister. As he reaches her, the tribe of savages is about to kill her for a sacrifice. Will he save her? Don't be too positive; I'll let you watch it and find out for yourself.

The boy learns that contrary to what he said, he really would risk his own life to save that of someone else. I like the fact that this movie has a moral to it, the kind of positive thing to which youngsters ought to be exposed as they grow up. Yes, there's some violence, there's some sadness, but it's of the level that kids can take seriously yet it won't give them nightmares or make them sick. I've seen many a movie not as worthwhile as this one. No, it's not a Western classic, but it's still a good story and an introduction to the genre; after all, this country had a lot of important history in the last half of the 1800's and just seeing some approximations of that era is in itself a bit of a history lesson.

I watched this movie on TV so many years ago that I cannot now be certain of all the details, such as how many times I have seen it. I still remember the theme song (that's how I found the movie, again, on IMDb).

There is nothing profound in this movie, but it is a respectable (if slightly cheesy) story about family devotion as a boy transforms into a young man. An Indian (sorry, Native American), sees the boy's sister rising from her bath in a creek, and kidnaps her. That's about as much nudity as this movie contains (we only get obscure views), which is the reason that I mention it specifically. The boy spends most of the rest of the movie trying to rescue his sister, aided only by a crotchety, old drunk, a task that overwhelms both of them. Someone must die, and the brother is determined to rescue his sister, even at the cost of his own life.

I just watched this movie.

I'm no Barry Norman , an old English film critic🇬🇧 , but as far as I'm concerned this is a wonderful movie where the central theme is giving one's life for another.

I'll just say it has a good story, good acting , wonderful scenery , lovely background music and it brought this 64 years young man to tears. 👌🆓