After watching Mustang Country, I'm convinced that Joel McCrea came out of retirement to do this film because he didn't want his last work on cinema to be Cry Blood Apache. This was a western done six years before in which Joel McCrea made a small appearance as an older version of the character that star Jody McCrea played. Jody also produced that rather worthless work and Joel must have regretted he didn't make retirement stick after Ride The High Country the way co-star Randolph Scott did.While Mustang Country will never attain the classic status of Ride The High Country, it's still a nice family western drama. McCrea is on screen for 98% of it with young Nika Mina his Indian co-star. McCrea is a western old timer, former sheep rancher who lives with his daughter and her family, but is now on business of his own to catch a wild black stallion on whom a bounty's been put. But you don't just kill a magnificent animal like this. Along the way McCrea finds young Nika Mina in the wilderness making for home after leaving the white man's school. He's on his way back to the reservation to see his grandfather who raised him. When they get home, grandfather has died and McCrea is all this kid has.So it's the old man, the kid, the old man's mare and his dog. What more do you need to make a family picture? There aren't any human villains, the closest Mustang Country has to a villain is a rogue grizzly bear old Three Toes. As for the stallion, he's up to all the tricks that man can devise. But what he isn't up to is a call to nature and the fact he's been alone himself in the woods for a long time. Good thing McCrea was riding a mare.Only two other human actors have any substantial roles. Robert Fuller and Patrick Wayne play a couple of other cowboys looking to collect the bounty on the stallion, but he's up to their double teaming. They visit with McCrea at his camp for a bit and leave the film early.The cinematography in Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada is really first rate. That and Joel McCrea are the best things about Mustang Country.

This has been described as a Western but I tend to disagree feeling it has more of an affinity with the "wilderness"movies and TV series that were being made around the same time ,such as Adventures of the Wilderness Family and Grizzly Adams.It is a simple tale of an ex-rodeo star turned rancher (Joel McCrea)who ,joined by a young native American boy (Nika Mina)sets out to capture the last wild mustang in Montana ,during the 1920's .There are only two other roles -a brief one scene appearance from Robert Fuller (ex of the Laramie TV show)and Patrick Wayne.The movie is pleasant but inconsequential offering little drama or character interaction but beguiling the eye with some attractive scenery and I suspect its main appeal will be to those seeking undisturbing family entertainment . It was to be Joel McCrea's last movie and he brought to it his usual rock solid professionalism The movie uses clips from earlier McCrea movies to illustrate the psst life of his character in this movie ..It would have been more fitting if he had ended his career with what turned out to be his penultimate movie Ride the High Country -that wonderfully elegy and tribute to a passing breed of men .As it was he left with this movie -pleasant ,untroubling but a bit too soft focused to be really aimed at adultsIts nice and its amiable -nothing more.

My daughter loves horses and is 6 years old. She and I watched this movie and were delighted the entire time. This is one of the very few G rated movies that is actually made in such a way that no parts were too intense for a young child. The scenery was lovely. The nature scenes were wonderful. The dialogue was simple, but very real, and laced with kindness that is rare these days. I loved the subtle wisdom of Dan, and the way the boy was refreshed by his influence. An overall winner in my book. One funny detail was that a pure-bred rottweiler dog was in the film, and when the owner was asked what kind of dog it was, he replied, "You name it, he's got it!"

I can't get over it. I thought "The Earthling" would never receive a decent competitor, but here it is. "The Earthling" takes place in another UK-founded country, Australia. And the boy is an orphaned son of a couple of tourists. Here, in "Mustang Country", the boy is a runaway Native American teen and the old man is an aficionado of horses since earlier than 1925. (The film starts as the two meet in a meadow while the old man is licking his chops to snare a black stallion.) Canada and its neighbor, Montana, are the venues in this one. But those are basically the only differences. Both stories tell of an old salt who decides to take a wayward young man in the wilderness under his arm. In each story, the old salt teaches the youth how to survive in the wilderness while teaching him essential characteristics of getting along well in life. Hmmm. Am I the only one who sees a tie-in to our contemporary "Challenger Program", where adults take real-life youths into the wilderness for the same purpose? The scenery would be like a National Geographic travelogue, if it weren't for the grand way the producers have brought together two great Thespians for the roles. (The Native American youth reminds me a lot of my 9-year-old grandson, as we visit the wilderness together in Utah.) I'm here to tell you, the teenagers and pre-teens are as clever and co-operative as the youth was in this film. As I have already indicated, I give it 10 of 10. Having taught in schoolrooms before I retired, I would suggest it as a three-day section of any middle-school or junior high school wilderness course. And, yes, we do offer those courses in Utah's secondary schools.