"The Painted Hills" is the last Lassie film from MGM and it's also one of the weakest. It's not exactly a bad movie but was a tad disappointing...mostly because it was such a dark story. Imagine combining "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" with a doggy picture!Lassie's owner is a nice prospector (Paul Kelly). However, once he discovers gold, his partner slowly loses his mind--imagining all sorts of folks coming to steal HIS gold. It becomes worse...and he begins to plot against his partner and eventually does the unthinkable. Lassie just instinctively knows what'll happen and by the end of the story, he's dispensed justice for his dead master!Greed, murder and revenge...this is not exactly "Lassie Come Home" and its dark story, though interesting, isn't what audiences were hoping to see...and kids wouldn't particularly enjoy. A very strange but watchable film.

Bad acting makes this drivel even worse. Poor script and dialog. Bland story.

This movie is mostly bad, but I probably have some bias on my opinion, seeing as how this is the first Lassie movie I've ever seen. I don't know why he was called Shep in this movie. Well, in the credits, it's said that Shep was played by Lassie. I guess Lassie is the name of the dog in real life, but maybe she used other names in movies? The boy here was called Tommy and not Timmy. Close enough? Okay, I haven't seen the other Lassie movies or the show so I can't really tell how this folds out. Maybe some characters went through name changes or something.This film mostly suffers from being too padded. It gets really annoying towards the end when Lassie and Petey just seem to be chasing each other over and over. I am surprised the rating is so low. I thought it was at least better than 90% of the films shown on "Mystery Science Theater 3000". Lassie is what makes this movie. She's (he's?) a fine actress and it's great to see a real life dog acting so well. It's a pity the humans aren't as good. You'd think they'd be more experienced. **

***SPOILER*** The last of the seven Lassie films produced by MGM with Lassie, who for some strange reason is called Pal in the movie credits, playing a Collie named Shep. Shep is the loyal companion of gold prospector Jonathan Harvey, Paul Kelly, who ends up playing a Dirty Harry or Charles Bronson like role when his friend and master is brutally murdered by his prospector partner Lin Taylor, Bruce Cowling. It's Taylor who's paranoia reached homicidal proportions who went completely postal and murdered Jonathan by pushing him off a cliff. That in order for Taylor to have all the gold that the two were to share together with young Tommy Blake, Gary Gray, and his mom Martha Blake,Ann Doran, all for himself.Lassie or Shep as she's called in the movie at first has her suspicions in what happened to her friend Jonathan but keeps them to herself until she find his broken body buried in the woods. It's Taylor who at first was a nice guy who took over the partnership of the gold mine that Jonathan had with Tommy's dad Frank who had since passed away from Pneumonia. It was greed that took hold of Taylor who soon became so crazy that he even accused and was about to shoot, that's until Jonathan stopped him, the kind friendly and bible thumping Pilot Pete, Art Smith, over trying to steal the gold he had hidden in his cabin. That's when Taylor caught Pete preparing supper for him Jonathan Tommy as well as Shep.It's soon that Taylor starts to realize that Shep is on to him in her friends Jonathan's murder and plans to shut her up for good by feeding her poison laced chicken that the hungry dog, who hasn't been fed in days, wolfs down. It's was local Indian Medicine Man Bald Eagle, Chief Yowlachie, who saved Shep's life with his home made remedy of herbs and spices which not only brought Shap back to life but finally convinced her that it was Taylor who did in her friend Jonathan and tried to do her in as well!***SPOILERS*** With Taylor now trying to knock off Tommy who, like Shep, knew he murdered Jonathan Shep springs to his rescue. With a determined Shep chasing him up the snow covered painted hills Taylor's luck runs out when he finds out, in trying to shoot Shep,that he's all out of ammunition. Shep not really interested in bringing Taylor back to civilization to face justice charges him causing Taylor to fall off a cliff, like he pushed Jonathan to his death, and die covered in the snow below.A bit hard to take in Lassie or Shep completely out of character acting more like a vicious Pit-bull or Rottweiler attack dog then the sweet and loving Collie that we all grew to love over the years. But like the saying goes "Somebody has to do it" in stooping Taylor from murdering little Tommy, and it was Shep or Lassie who was the only one there on the scene to stop him!