Il fuggiasco di Santa Fè

Attractive Western with only a couple of shots , emotion and no blood-letting .Entertaining Western that seems to be a peculiar version to classic Captains Courageous by Víctor Fleming with Spencer Tracy . Concerns a lost boy : Dean Stockwell who missed himself at desert from the train of his father : Leon Ames . Then, a cowboy : Joel McCrea , meets the spoiled kid and he teaches him about cattle driving and to track down wild horses . Both of whom attempt to chase and tame a brave Mustang .The Story of the Grat Santa Fé Stampede¡

Nice and film with thrills , cattle drive and stimulating outdoors. Plenty of esplendor and animal fury , but no shootouts , only cattle drive and usual stampedes .This is a kind of alfresco charming tale , a refreshingly different movie , paying tribute to Joel McCrea and Víctor Fleming's Captains courageous .Here shows up a lot of wildlife with impressive Mustangs running across countries and mountains . These scenes about horses were later reused for other movies as Black Horse Canyon 1954 , this Cattle Drive and Fury series .

The picture was well starred by Joel McCrea as the expert cowboy , a world-wise person and wanna-be rancher . McCrea was a B actor , though he ocassionally played A films as Sullivan's Travels , The Most Dangerous Game , and Sam Peckinpah's Ride in High Sierra . Joel performed a lot of Westerns , as his interpretations are ideally suited for this genre , such as : Union Pacific , Buffalo Bill , The Virginian , Ramrod , South of Saint Louis , Four faces of the West , The Oklahoman . He is well accompanied by the always sympathetic and incombustible Chill Wills , Leon Ames as the wealthy railroad owner , Howard Petrie , Bob Steele , Harry Carey Jr , and the usually baddie Henry Brandon . And , of course , the prodigy child Dean Stockwell to follow a very long career as cinema as TV . The flick packs a luxurious , brilliant cinematography by Maury Gertsman and was well directed by Kurt Newman . Rating :6.5/10 . Worthwhile Watching .

Most Westerns, apart from comedies, are about conflicts- heroes versus villains, cavalry versus Indians, sheriff versus outlaws- which can only be settled by violence. "Cattle Drive", however, is different. It is the story of a spoilt teenager, Chester Graham Junior, the son of a millionaire railway tycoon, who is travelling through the West on one of his father's trains. When the trains stops briefly to take on water, Chester is accidentally left behind, but he is rescued by a gang of cowboys on a cattle drive. The men have no time to take him in search of his father; they insist that he must accompany them to their destination, Santa Fe, and that he must help them with their work if he wants to be fed. At first young Chester's arrogant and snobbish attitude alienates the men, but he soon learns the importance of humility, hard work and cooperation, and wins them over. One of the cowboys, Dan, becomes his special friend. Dean Stockwell makes a personable young hero, teaming up well with the veteran actor Joel McCrea. (McCrea tended to specialise in Westerns, although I always think of him as the hero of Hitchcock's "Foreign Correspondent").

The film is said to be based upon Kipling's sea-story "Captain's Courageous", but I must admit that I have never read that book or seen the 1937 film that was based on it. The plot, however, can be seen as a distilled and simplified version of the literary genre known as the "Bildungsroman", a German word which literally means "education novel" but which can also be translated as "novel of character formation". The basic plot of such a novel is "young man (or woman) learns important lessons about life", and Dickens's "Great Expectations" is a good English language example.

At just over an hour and a quarter it is a very short film, even by the standards of the time. It is, however, an example of two trends that were to mark the development of the Western in the fifties. Firstly, it is shot in colour against the background of some spectacular scenery, actually in Utah and California's Death Valley, although the action supposedly takes place in New Mexico. The generic "Wild West town" set used for Santa Fe bears little resemblance to the real city of that name. Secondly, there is a greater emphasis on character than on action, although there are some exciting scenes of a cattle stampede and a sub-plot about Dan's attempts, with Chester's help, to capture and tame a wild black stallion. There is nothing particularly deep or significant about the film; some much better character-driven Westerns, such as "The Naked Spur" and "The Big Country" were to be made over the next few years. By these standards "Cattle Drive" is a lesser Western, but it is still a watchable and entertaining one. 6/10

Young Dean Stockwell is one spoiled kid, but with his father Leon Ames running a railroad, he's hardly got time for the kid. After Dean gets lost on the New Mexico desert when his father's train stops to take on water, he's found by Joel McCrea who's the top hand of a Cattle Drive going to Sante Fe.

That Cattle Drive is the making of young Dean. Under the tutelage of Joel, the kid turns out to be quite a good hand.

If the story sounds familiar like everyone else who reviewed this film, we all noted the obvious similarity between Cattle Drive and Captains Courageous.

McCrea and Stockwell had worked well together before in Stars in My Crown for MGM the year before. Though Cattle Drive is a good film, I can't recommend Stars in My Crown highly enough.

Look also for a nice performance by Chill Wills as the cook on the drive. A man definitely good to stand in with as we learned in Monte Walsh.

There's no violence in Cattle Drive, there's no women in it either. We do learn Joel does have a girl friend as he shows a picture of Frances Dee to all who will look.

It's a shame that Cattle Drive is not out on VHS or DVD it's a perfect family film to rent.

This pleasant ,juvenile Western is a retread of the theme of the classic movie -and Kipling novel upon which it is based-Captains Courageous in that it deals with the education in life of a spoiled rich kid who is taken out of his comfort zone and forced to adjust to new situations and people Chester Graham Junior (a winning performance from Dean Stockwell)is the boy in question .He is left alone in the desert by mischance and can only get back to civilisation by joining a cattle drive bossed by the tough but fair Dan Matthews (the always excellent Joel Macrea).Chester is a fish out of water and struggles to adjust, making his dislike of the situation and his new colleagues all too plain until he sees the error of his ways learning lessons of the trail and life itself from his new boss and grizzled veterans played by genre luminaries Chill Wills and Bob Steele.There is one delightful touch when Macrea pulls out a picture of the woman waiting for him at end of trail -it shows his wife in real life ,Francis Dee, with whom he made a number of Westerns

Kurt Neumann,not a name usually linked with the genre, directs admirably and the colour photography by Maury Gertsman ,of Death Valley where the movie was shot is superb .Indeed the choice of ;ocation adds immeasurably to the impact of the movie as it is relatively little used in Westerns

This is not the only trail drive Western to draw its inspiration from a movie in another style -Red River being essentially a variation on Mutiny on the Bounty .This is not in the class of that magnificent movie but it is enjoyable and worth watching

Okay...so we all know Cattle Drive (1951) is Captains Courageous (1937) on dirt, and instead of cut fingers and constantly soaked clothes, it's saddle sores and an endless supply of beans and bad coffee. So what? It doesn't lessen the value of the story, nor reduce the entertainment experienced when watching this movie. It's a little gem of a story. That said, there are some less than positive attributes with Cattle Drive (1951). The worst of these are that, frequently, the movie and the characters seem rushed and even abrupt. This leaves the viewer wanting more ... more development between the two main characters; more interplay with the other hands during the drive, and more information about the "education" of the father at the end of the movie. Having seen this movie subsequent to seeing Captains Courageous (1937), it was difficult not to mentally compare the two while viewing this movie. To some degree, that actually worked against Cattle Drive (1951). Even at that, Cattle Drive (1951) is well worth a look.