Green Grass of Wyoming

Mary O'Hara's trilogy, "My Friend Flicka," "Thunderhead," and "Green Grass of Wyoming" have been a treasured part of my life since I was a child. However, the three films made from them vary widely in quality, meaning specifically to their relationships to the books upon which they are based. "My Friend Flicka" is by far the best of the three, and "Thunderhead, Son of Flicka" (as it was renamed) was not bad, though each contains minor changes from the books. However, "Green Grass of Wyoming" is a total disappointment. The plot is changed so much that it bears almost no resemblance to its source. For instance, "Crown Jewel" is made into a harness horse instead of a "superb English Thoroughbred," as she is described in the book, and Burl Ives appears in a totally unnecessary role. Forget this film and go to your local library and read the book (if you can find it). This is one case in which the book is far better than the film!

This is a sweet little film, in glorious technicolor, about kids and horses - a sequel to a sequel of "My Friend Flicka". but with a different cast. Robert Arthur is charming as the lead boy and Charles Coburn as his rival is excellent. But Peggy Cummins is wretched as the love interest - so saccharine! Lloyd Nolan is good as always, but Burl Ives is wasted (and sings a truly woeful song).

But the humans don't matter much because the horses steal the show. A beautiful white stallion is the star and the glorious black mare he kidnaps is the leading lady. Together they gallop through magnificent mountain scenery like salt and pepper against the green. The scene where he seduces her is intensely erotic, and when she becomes stuck in a bog their distress is completely believable. How they got the horses to do the things they do I'll never know (and I pray it was not cruel), but they are superb.

Peggy Cummins, adopting an amusing Irish burr, plays one of those dungaree dolls who are crazy about horses and the neighboring teenage boy, wearing her blonde hair in tight pigtails and taking a stern hand with her hard-drinking, rough-hewn grandpa as if she were in-training to be his wife. The script for this family film, based on Mary O'Hara's book--and sort of a second-cousin to her popular sagas "My Friend Flicka" and "Thunderhead, Son of Flicka"--is perfunctory without being exciting, and the movie is so well-scrubbed it's beatific. Narrator Burl Ives also appears, playing a guitar-strumming ranch-hand (he entertains at the teen-dance singing the totally inappropriate novelty, "I Wish I Were Single Again") and Charles Coburn is Cummins' grandfather, who blames a mythic wild horse from running off with his mares. Charles G. Clarke's picture-postcard photography was Oscar-nominated, and deservedly so: his rich Technicolor panoramas display beautiful blue skies and vast mountain terrain, handsome ranch houses nestled in the hills and even horses who seem satisfied. The climax at the sulky races isn't a crowd-pleaser, but the film may placate animal-lovers even though it's all been done before. **1/2 from ****

The majestic Technicolor landscapes photographed by Charles G. Clarke look on placidly as a good cast of humans is increasingly sidelined as this film concentrates on Thunderhead's developing romance with mare Crown Jewell (with the usual threats by local meanies to shoot him for his presumption). Anthropomorphic reaction shots of Thunderhead are occasionally edited in to suggest that he's actually responding to things that people have just said; most amusingly when he seems to be looking pleased with himself when they realise that his lady friend is now pregnant.

By this stage earlier suggestions of an equivalent romance developing between fresh-faced young Robert Arthur and Peggy Cummins following a tussle in the straw in their barn have been largely forgotten; and the Breen Office would certainly have taken a far less benign view had their relationship been depicted as going as far as the horses' had!

A lovely film, you get happy seeing it, and it's easy going an. The two horses that have the lead roles in the movie are adorable beautiful (stallion is white, and the mare bang black).

My personal benefit was Beaver Greenway (Charles Coburn) fine acting together with his granddaughter, and exceptionally adorable Carey Greenways (played by Peggy Cummins), which is absolutely phenomenal in the manner she treats his grandfather.

This film will apparently be Marilyn Monroe's sixth film, where she will be one of the dancers in a brief scene in the middle of the movie, but I could not see her. For those who like horses, is a must movie to watch ;-)