This movie has got to be one of the first movies i ever watched in my life, and it has affected me very much. This movie is so nostalgic to my family and i, that just the number 7, makes us think of this movie. Despite my love for this movie, i will give a fair review. The movie takes place in the 1800s, and it follows the lives of the sager family, as they intend to travel to Oregon, to find their own piece of heaven. The movie is narrated by Catherine , the oldest girl, who wrote a first-hand account of their journey , today it is regarded as one of the most authentic accounts of the American westward migration, despite this Catherine is not the main character and instead her older brother Jon is. The father is a strict but fair man, the mother is very caring but stern woman, the youngest son is hardworking, Catherine, the eldest daughter with a crippled leg acts like a mother to the 4 youngest daughters, especially the adorable baby girl, as for the eldest son, Jon sager, it seems that this movie does everything possible to make you dislike this kid from the very beginning, as he does pranks on his sisters, is seen being lazy and acts like a jerk, you know he deserves every spanking his dad gives him. But this character feels like a real kid and therefore feels relatable , and that's why his character development feels so good, when he becomes the leader of the children. Surprisingly for a family movie, both parents die, this is surprising because both characters are given a fair amount of characterization, and that's why it feels more sad when they both die, leaving 7 orphan children to travel to Oregon on their own. Despite everything being against them, the 7 children decide they want to get to Oregon and find the land their parents died trying to get to, with the only thing to remind them of their parents dream is a box with colored glass window pieces. The movie is mostly a drama, and requires the kids to say a lot of lines, surprisingly all the kids are pretty good actors, but sometimes the direction could have been better and there's just something about the way Jon sagers actor talks that makes him more irritating. All the supporting cast including the parents, do a great job, i especially like Kid Carson's actor. Despite there being little action, the drama can sometimes gets very intense, my personal favorite moments are when the wagon is attacked by Indians, the kids crossing the river, and when their all freezing in the snow. The music really turns up the drama to 11, it make every scene more compelling when the kids are talking, and horrifying when Jon finds their native American scout scalped, the mules death and when his sisters are collapsing in the snow ( i seriously thought one of his sisters was going to die!). But whats really great about this movie is the message, and there are several, first is the will to achieve the American dream and go after what you want, second is when a boy needs to throw away his childish ways and learn to become a proper man and take care of his family. The ending has got to be one of the most endearing movie endings that Ive ever seen, with all the children running toward the parents at their house in Oregon, which i have to assume is in heaven, with the heart-wrenching song " only a dream away" playing in the background. The pacing is good, the music is phenomenal and the story is timeless, safe to say this movie still holds up. This movie was my sisters and my favorite movie as kids because it showed us we could be more independent in trying to accomplish things, but it certainly made us grateful that we had both our parents to take care of us. if you haven't watched this movie, please go watch it.

Wow, there's a lot of vitriol hurled at this film by some of the other reviewers here. I don't see that it's warranted quite frankly. The film demonstrates perseverance, fortitude and a cohesive family spirit once the parents die, leaving the 'seven alone' kids of the title to take up the father's original mission of homesteading a dream in Oregon. Watching the picture from the comfort of one's warm living room may make the story seem far fetched to a lot of viewers, but for the thousands of settlers who headed west in the 1840's, many of the hardships depicted in the picture had to be a concern. The PC police who rail against unfair treatment of Native Americans in the picture obviously missed the scene of the Indian village that accepted the Sager kids and nursed the baby back to health. As far as the acting goes, it appears that the cast of children was selected on the basis of being related to each other rather than passing a screen test. I don't see that that makes the effort any less worthwhile. How about concentrating on the values expressed in the story and admire the Sagers who persevered when all seemed hopeless. That would be a worthwhile takeaway.

Enjoyed this great 1974 family film, which was so down to earth about everything that happened to people living in the 1840's and their love of the Mid-West and the trip they were willing to take all the way to the Northwestern part of the country. This film starts out with a husband and wife who have six children and are struggling to scratch the surface of the land in Missouri and the husband grows weary of trying to settle in this part of the country. His main concern is going West like most of his neighbors. However, his wife simply does not like the idea at all. Once a decision is made, the story becomes very interesting and at times tragic; another baby is born, increasing the family to seven. This is a very down to earth depiction of how settlers traveled with their families and had great determination and faith in God to lead them to a better way of living in this great land of the United States.

Afte the explosion of sex and violence in movies, even more the twisted amorality of in the late 60's, there was a predictable backlash. By the early 70's, Hollywood had found a market for "nice" stories such as The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie, not to mention a bunch of other knock-offs that failed. This family-oriented counter-revolution extended to film, with Disney putting out lots of cheap, dumb-but-funny Kurt Russell movies and cheaper American International-like studios doing Grizzly-Frontier-Adams-Fremont in the Rockies productions. Some sucked pond water and some were even worse. Maybe the worst I've ever seen is Seven Alone, a story of a flock of 1840's era kiddies fighting their way along the Oregon Trail after their folks die (a blessing if human worth is based on acting ability). I grabbed this flick off the shelf at the local library, figuring it would be digestible cheese for my family to watch. Sure enough, my wife is enjoying it and my 9-year-old is loving it. Because I'm a pain-in-the-keister critic, I'm bleeding profusely from biting my tongue in order not to turn family movie night into Mystery Science Theatre 3000 with me playing all three parts of the audience. I try to be a good dad. This is so awful. I feel sorry for Dewey Martin and Aldo Ray, two accomplished and successful actors from the 40's through 60's. They must have been so very desperate for parts that they took the offer to do this hopelessly underfunded, underacted, and badly produced mess.And yet . . . There is some small bit of accuracy in this gunk. While another reviewer on this site had a small scale hissy over the movie being politically incorrect in its treatment of American Indians, I remind you that when a principal character refers to the natives as "dirty redskins," that's the least of the insults that were hurled at Indians by Caucasian settlers. They were hated and feared, and to our ancestors, the natives were a pestilence. Doesn't make it right or wrong, just accurate. My recommendation would be to skip this dull nonsense (even if the book it was based on was a good work of history) and stick with the tasty cheese put out by the Disney dairy. The most you'll get is gas. Seven Alone gave me a splitting headache.