Old Yeller

“All the heart, all the excitement of a great frontier adventure!”

Travis Coates (Tommy Kirk) is a boy left in charge of the family ranch in 1860s Texas when his father (Fess Parker) rides off on a cattle drive. A big yellow mongrel wanders onto the property and settles in, and Travis, who wants nothing to do with it, ends up keeping it anyway. Robert Stevenson's film is about how fast a stray becomes family, and how much that costs.