Man and Boy

Very well written story of the early American West and African American family. It is "G" rated but the subject is on adult level, for complete understanding. The psychology of the characters is very well defined and true to life as I see it, from my knowledge of early cowboys in Texas and the Western frontier. Fine acting and great scenery, a good movie to watch!

The most impressive thing about this film, to me, was it's realism. Many films have the pretense of reality, but very few movies have truly human characters. The only one you can become emotionally invested in is, of course, the boy. Everyone else is perfectly flawed. The Hero is, at times, a coward. The villains all seem to be driven by motives that one can easily understand. And under the same influences, one might be inclined to follow the same paths they chose. As in life, there are few truly righteous or evil people. Some, but very few. Most of us are somewhere in between. In short,"Man and Boy" is teaching us this lesson through the eyes of a young boy looking for a hero. Dose he find one? You be the judge.

This was another film in the long Hollywood tradition of playing the race card. We have here a string of incidents designed to create anger between the races of those viewing this film. This was at its worst of course in Roots which has created a dynamic in America that is still with us.

The focus is always on the most negative incidents that the writer can dream up. This of course has created a mental segregation based on anger or misplaced guilt depending on race. It should of course depend on whether your ancestors are abolitionists; plantation owners or black or white Revolutionary War heroes etc. Hopefully Hollywood will someday realize that a person is an individual not a race.

It is not surprising that this film was used for second grade class as part of the horrible curriculum in today's schools. Strangely most of Cosby's work other than this is quite the opposite and is usually good.

It was just rather interesting how much a person could need something and the skills developed to acquire it, especially capturing something wild, like the white horse with its brown relatives. Anyway, after lassoing it, it winds up dragging him until the rope breaks. That was a cinematic scene. I only saw a reel of this film, a reel that mysteriously was identified as a reel from Westworld.

Between Juneteenth and Father's Day, I thought I'd finally watch this-a Bill Cosby western in which he takes his pre-teen son with him on a journey to recover their stolen horse. Cosby's character is married to a Gloria Foster one. They would team in a couple more TV movies-To All My Friends on Shore and Top Secret and Ms. Foster would also appear in many of Mr. Cosby's TV shows. Anyway, among the people Cosby and his son encounter is a widowed Native American-raised woman played by Shelley Morrison, years before her most famous role as the maid Rosario in "Will and Grace". I'll just now say this was quite an exciting western and also a good drama concerning the bonding of father and son. So that's a recommendation of Man and Boy.