Review of My Friend Flicka

Introduction

Adapted from Mary O`Hara`s novel, My Friend Flicka tells the story of a young boy and a horse he calls Flicka. Through looking after the horse during good times and bad, he learns about responsibility etc. etc.

The book also spawned 2 sequels, both of which were also made into films - Thunderhead, Son of Flicka and Green Grass of Wyoming</span. It also spun off a TV series that aired for a couple of years during the 1950s.

Video

A full frame transfer (as it was filmed) which looks a bit of a mess for a large amount of the time. There`s lots of dirt and dust lying around and it looks like no-one has done any cleaning up on this print. A shame as it has an interesting Technicolour look to it, very bright and vibrant.

It really looks its age and it just screams 1940s/1950s at you, loud and clear. Filming was done on location in Cedar City, Utah, which gives some very nice scenery.

Audio

A choice of three DD2.0 stereo soundtracks, featuring the original mono replayed over both channels. You can choose from English, which sounds a bit muffled and difficult to hear at times, or from German and Italian - both of which get progressively easier to hear. But of course, unless you speak the language you can`t understand what`s going on. Perhaps that`s a good thing actually as there are some abysmal accents around on the English soundtrack.

Features

Not even a trailer.

Conclusion

Yuck. A cheese stuffed cute kiddie movie, the sort of dross that fills up daytime schedules in the Xmas holidays or that you might find on satellite/cable channel Living TV. The performances of the cast are reasonable enough, but you know what`s going to happen and it`s all very predictable and boring. I can`t imagine why you would want to buy it on DVD when there are so many thousands of better DVDs available.

I`m afraid that I really can`t say anything good about this film. Ok, there are some nice shots of the Utah mountains, but if I wanted to see that I`d watch a nature documentary. This is just a film that goes nowhere, and I wouldn`t even recommend it for children as they will just get bored with it.

Recommended for fans of the film or terminal insomniacs only! At least it`s cheap.