You won't be disappointed!

A Major Disappointment

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

The adult actors in this modern west drama play second fiddle to the animals and young Charlie Hughes in Call Of The Forest. In fact young master Hughes narrates the film in flashback, something a child actor is not called on to do normally.For a kid from New York City Hughes takes to the wild west and loves life on his father's ranch. Ken Curtis also has a yen to claim a lost gold mine actually given to him by Chief Thundercloud in appreciation for the kindness Curtis has shown the Indians. Unfortunately there's a villain here in Robert Lowery who wants that lost mine for himself if it exists.Most of the film is taken up with the taming of the black wild stallion King who takes to Hughes the way Fury took to Joey Newton. In fact there are a few similarities for this film to the old Fury series. In fact Hughes the city kid has all the wild life in the area liking him with the exception of a mountain lion. Don't fear about that though when the cougar meets up with King. Call Of The Forest is a Lippert film and it's not a bad one for family viewing. In fact we never saw anyone on the big or small screen with quite the knack with 'Critters' until Elly Mae Clampett.

In the 1945 color classic "The Enchanted Forest", an old man and a young boy shared a naturalistic existence surrounded by friendly wild animals that supposed civilized men tried to destroy. In this later western, a little boy from the city comes to live with his father and finds that he has a remarkable gift with animals, in particular a wild horse that his father managed to capture as a gift for him. Walking through the woods, the little boy (Charlie Hughes) feeds the squirrels, waves at a bathing raccoon, giggles at the wiggling tale of an upside down possum and wrestles with a feisty baby bear. Native American Chief Undercloud recognizes his easy way with animals and agrees to help him and his father (Ken Curtis) find a hidden gold mine which the nasty Robert Lowery is determined to find, willing to commit murder to reach his goal.This light-hearted, almost child-like adventure/western starts off like any traditional "B" western but moves into fantasy territory once Hughes and Curtis go off to the woods to explore. The scenes of Curtis trying to tame the wild Black Diamond are quite intense, as is a fight between the two horses for control over the wild pack. Villain Robert Lowery is top billed, a first for most westerns, and even though he looks like he could be the guy next door (no dark moustache, no sneering as he talks), he is obviously somebody who can't be trusted. There is one minor young female part, but for the most part, this is about a boy, his father, their struggle for survival and their friendship with nature, especially as guided through Chief Thundercloud who provides the moral of the story.

As a kid, this is the kind of movie I couldn't get enough of - plenty of wild animals and a young protagonist one could identify with. Reminiscent of a couple of TV shows I used to watch back in the Fifties - "My Friend Flicka" and "Fury" - both family friendly shows that featured a boy and his horse. "Call of the Forest" has an unusual mix of players, with Robert Lowery top billed, kind of unusual since he was the main heavy in the picture. Ken Curtis actually might have had most of the screen time if you were to keep track, and it was cool to see him in a decidedly different role from that of Festus Hagen in "Gunsmoke". Curtis displays some talent with his gun twirling routine, and gets to sing a couple of tunes on guitar before he's summarily dispatched by bad guy Harrison (Lowery). I find it somewhat disheartening today when I see a likable character killed off in a story with young kids. Even though this one ended with the villain getting his due, you're left wondering what would happen to Bobby after the final credits roll.The picture also offers a unique close up view of Native American Indian actor Chief Thundercloud. I first became aware of him while watching the original Lone Ranger serials in which he portrayed the original on screen Tonto. His character Stormcloud befriends young Bobby, and offers him a personally drawn map to a legendary Lost Mine that the local ranchers wistfully dream about. For all the attention the mine gets at the center of the story's plot, the picture never winds up with it's discovery.I know it was the fashion back in the Forties and Fifties for a picture to headline it's equine star with top billing. This one introduces Black Diamond as King, the Stallion, but alas, his was a one film career. As it was for Beady the Racoon and Fuzzy the Bear, but I found it interesting that Jimmy the Crow wound up with ten films under his wing.

Beautifully photographed by Karl Struss and capably directed by film editor John F. Link (the second of only two movies as a director), this is one of these movies in which the humans are often forced to play second fiddle to the animals—in this case mostly a black stallion named "King". Indeed, although Ken Curtis gets to sing a song (appropriately "Git Along Little Dogies") and spends a lot of time talking about his search for a lost gold mine, we never actually see the mine because the camera is so busy with the "King" and Charlie Hughes sub-plot. Indeed, Curtis could complain that once the wrangling and the singing is out of the way, he has little to do in the picture but play second fiddle to personable villain, Robert Lowery (who has a great henchman in our old friend, Jack Ingram). All the same, Curtis is far better treated than Martha Sherrill, who is prominently featured in all the film's advertising blocks but can be spotted in the actual movie itself for all of about thirty seconds. On the other hand, Chief Thundercloud has a comparatively sizable role with close-ups yet! But then, "Black Diamond", the horse, "Fuzzy", the bear, and company get lots of close-ups too!