My Friend Flicka

Ten-year-old Ken McLaughlin, who lives on a remote Wyoming ranch, comes home from school with poor marks, and his father Rob puts it down to a refusal to take responsibility. At his wife Nell’s suggestion, Rob lets the boy pick a colt from the herd to raise as his own. The animal Ken chooses disappoints his father: a difficult, unmanageable mustang filly. The two of them attach to each other quickly, and the work of taming her teaches Ken the thing school could not, which is patience and responsibility. Harold D. Schuster’s 20th Century Fox production was adapted from Mary O’Hara’s 1941 novel. Roddy McDowall plays Ken, Preston Foster the father and Rita Johnson the mother. Alfred Newman wrote the music and Dewey Wrigley photographed it. Shot in Technicolor, it was among the biggest earners of 1943 and grew into a series through its sequels.