The Light in the Forest

A couple of young players, James MacArthur and Carol Lynley, got their breakout roles in Walt Disney's The Light In The Forest. I saw this way back when I was a 10 year old kid, urged as I always was by the Disney publicity machine greatest in the world then. I doubt any kid who saw both the Disneyland TV show or the Mickey Mouse Club let their parents alone until they saw this or any number of other Disney products.

Seeing it almost 60 years later and knowing now what I know of the source of this film, Conrad Richter's novel a whole lot had to be strained out in order to make this G rated entertainment. The Paxton Boys that are headed by Pastor John McIntire were quite real and as murderous a gang of thugs on the frontier as you would find. There is the Conestoga massacre eluded to in the film. That was quite a real incident where many Delawares were slaughtered without reason or provocation, a colonial era Sand Creek. McIntire's character John Elder though had a certain plausible deniability in the affair.

Stephen Bekassy's character General Henry Bouquet is also real, he pops up in the Cecil B. DeMille epic Unconquered. The rest is Richter's tale of a young white captive returned to his people by terms of a treaty with Chief Joseph Calleia. MacArthur goes back and accompanying him is scout Fess Parker who kind of eases him into acceptance by his long lost parents Frank Ferguson and Jessica Tandy and others.

One who doesn't accept him is Wendell Corey who is a swaggering Indian hating bully. Corey could play some truly hateful people on the big and small screen and he's one of the worst. The climax is the showdown between MacArthur and Corey and I will say viewing it now, what happens makes no sense.

Carol Lynley plays a young indentured servant bound to Corey and this is a topic I see rarely discussed. In order to obtain passage from Great Britain one could bind one self over into essential slavery for a period of seven years. Corey who's a cad besides everything else is real interested in Lynley for other than house work. Fess Parker has also a love interest in McIntire's daughter Joanne Dru.

Maybe one day we'll get a more true to the book adaption of this story. But The Light In The Forest is a decent Disney film that served its cast well.