While this movie (in my opinion) is touching in the way that any young child has to learn the ways of life the hard way - working hard to earn his/her wants, I think the acting of Billy in the movie was very dry and it was hard to really become interested in the character. It's an older movie that has something to relate to, so I believe that this is the perfect film for a younger person to watch. It gives you the mindset of the simplicity of the way things were way back when, and for a short amount of time you're forced to question the morality of the family in the film. I think most of the acting in this movie was very dry; especially after the tragic (spoiler) death of Billy's hound dogs. I was expecting the parents to have sympathy, but they were more interested in heading back inside, so I felt like it should have had a different outcome.

Where the red fern grows is the best movie ever, and i think its enjoyable for anyone. It was always my favorite movie when i was growing up and always will be. I don't understand how anyone couldn't like it and if you don't then screw you :)Billy lives on a farm. He wants two good coon hounds very badly, but his Papa cannot afford any. Billy works hard, selling fruit and bait to fishermen, so eventually he has enough money for the dogs. I think it also shows how much times have changed, because back in the day they worked for what they wanted and now its nothing like that and most people get things handed to them and never work a day in there life.

Yet another fictional "memoir" of that final year before puberty, which seems colored for so many in sepia or pastel tones of impenetrable nostalgia. There are so many of them that if the films were laid end to end they'd undoubtedly reach the moon. For me, "Stand By Me" is the sine qua non, but as this one precedes it by more than a decade, perhaps it's unfair to compare. In any case, this is the tale of a 12-y/o boy during the depression who longs to acquire a pair of hound dogs with which he can hunt raccoons. Now I don't suppose my opinions about scaring small animals out of their wits and then killing them is particularly relevant here, but if you're going to extol the practice, then at least be honest enough to show it! Here, each raccoon is pursued up a tree, and then seamlessly transformed into a clean and bloodless pelt -- probably tanned and deodorized too, though I couldn't be sure about that. Other than that, I can tell you that the boy was a year older the next year, and that there's an old Indian story about a red fern and two lovers. I suppose if this kid was your grandfather, this might make a good story to loll you to sleep on a cold winter's night, but since he wasn't related to me I found I didn't care for or about him any more at the end of the movie than before I watched it. My advice: give this one a pass.

this movie was very old when my students and i watched it in the fourth grade after reading the novel. The first few minutes go really slow and then about thirty minutes in the movie it starts to get really great. I believe the only thing wrong was that some of the acting was poor. I give this movie a **-out of-*** !!!