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Mostly really good things here. It gets a little slow and repetitive in places.

The authenticity of the settings and the beautiful photography make it stand out from other pet stories. It does not feel like a Hollywood product

The story is not fresh, but to have the pet be a bull is. The era in which the story is told is different from today giving the film a lot of flavor (the priest blessing the animals).

The movie starts with a funeral procession for the main character's mother. It is understandable how Gitano became so important to me.

Lovely experience.

In Mexico, peasant boy Leonardo saves a calf in a storm which killed the mother cow. He raises it lovingly as his own Gitano. The cow was a gift to his father from Don Alejandro and eventually Gitano as well. After the Don's death, Gitano is nevertheless auctioned off as part of the estate. Leonardo sets off to save his beloved bull before it is killed in a bullfighting ring.

It's an American film of a Mexico story with confusing writing credit. It did win the writing Oscar which has since been reissued to blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo. I'm not sure if this deserved it, but awards are not exact science. I would have simplified the ownership back and forth in the first half of the movie. I would let the peasant family assume until the authorities take away the bull due to an unfair law interpretation. That would be a cleaner and more compelling story. I do really like the Mexican flavors despite this being an American film. The bullfighting may be cruel to some, but is nevertheless very compelling.

When I read the summary for "The Brave One", I wasn't eager to watch the film. After all, it sounded like a sappy movie targeted towards kids. Boy, was I wrong!

The story surprised me in many ways. Instead of making it in Hollywood, filming it in black & white, and having all sorts of negative or paternalistic Mexican stereotypes, the story managed to have none of these. Instead, it's obvious someone at RKO really cared about the project and a lot of love and attention was given in order to make this more than just another Hollywood film.

Soon after the story begins, a cow is injured and is dying. But fortunately, her baby survives and is raised by Leonardo (Michel Ray). The boy loves that little calf and over time they become inseparable. Unfortunately, the bull is also destined for the bull ring one day and much of the story shows the boy's efforts to save his beloved Gitano.

While the story might sound sappy, it was very well executed. I also appreciate that the Mexican people are shown in a very good light...like real people, not stereotypes. The story also ended wonderfully...and you'll need to have some Kleenex nearby just in case. Well worth seeing, but also NOT a film for young kids...or, better yet, see the movie with them. This is because the bullfighting scenes, while sanitized, are still pretty gory and disturbing.

The King Brothers commissioned this screenplay from blacklisted Dalton Trumbo and, in 1957, it earned an Oscar for Best Story. A claim that the story, "Emilio and Bull" by Paul Rader, submitted to the Kings in 1951, was the basis for the script was settled out of court. Perhaps, inspiration was provided by Albert Lamorisse's magnificent French short "White Mane" (1953), another story of a small boy, who develops a rapport with a big animal, that adults also claim for commercial purposes. But this Technicolor, Cinemascope feature film, set in Mexico, with a score by Victor Young, received much more attention and praise. It is a pleasure to visit Mexico City in 1956, to see the handsome old cars and enter the ring with the bullfighters. Director Irving Rapper gets good performances from all, including the bull and Trumbo handles the rising suspense masterfully.

This is the story of a young Mexican peasant boy who comes across a cow that is dying beneath a fallen tree branch and saves the calf she is birthing; a strong bond is established between the boy and the calf, a bond that persists as the calf turns into an aggressive bull that is being groomed for the the bullring. This bellicose beast is referred to as being "brave" in this film.

Ownership of the bull is a subject of debate throughout the film and at one point the boy gains an audience with the Mexican President to try to resolve the issue. Outside of the story being utterly preposterous, I had no problem with it.

This was filmed in Mexico in CinemaScope using highly saturated colors. There are some beautiful scenes of rural Mexico as well as a tour of Mexico City. The sweeping score by Victor Young invites grand emotion, but it stuck me as too exuberant, in the style of many scores of 1950s movies. The acting is uniformly wooden.

The highlights of the film are the captivating, and extended, bull fighting scenes. No matter what your opinion is of this controversial sport, it will be hard for you not to recognize its appeal based on these scenes. When an American visitor to Mexico expresses her dismay about the sport, her Mexican host notes that boxing and fox hunting are accepted, so why not bullfighting? He goes on to say that Mexicans know that death is never very far away, but that Americans are outraged by pain and, as for death, they may pass a law against it at any time.

What attracted me to this movie was seeing that it is based on an Oscar-winning story by Dalton Trumbo. The movie credits the story to one "Robert Rich," who was a front for Trumbo during the period of his being blacklisted during the McCarthy era (when Trumbo appeared before a Congressional committee and was threatened with a Contempt of Congress citation for not answering questions, he told the committee that that would be appropriate, since he had nothing but contempt for them). After having seen other movies with strong themes based on Trumbo screenplays, such as "Lonely are the Brave," "Papillon," and "Spartacus," I was looking forward to this film, but it does not live up to the quality of those. I was puzzled as to how Trumbo could have lapsed into such sentimentality, but then it occurred to me that he must have identified with the bull who defied attempts to be constrained and ultimately prevailed, just as Trumbo himself.