Review: The Incredible Journey (1963) (DMC #37)
If you’re a fan of animal movies, chances are you’ve seen The Incredible Journey or its remake, Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey. Last night we watched the original 1963 film, The Incredible Journey, which is the thirty-seventh film in the Disnerd Movie Challenge! In case you’re a bit hazy on the details, we’ve included a synopsis below. If you’ve watched it recently, feel free to jump on ahead to our review.
Synopsis
John Longridge lives in his Canadian country home, accompanied by Luath the young Labrador Retriever, Bodger the elderly English Bull Terrier, and Tao the Siamese cat. This is not the animals’ true home, and Luath is feeling homesick. John gets a call from his housekeeper, Mrs. Oakes, letting him know she will not be able to arrive at his house the next day until 9:00 in the morning, after John has left for a weeks-long hunting trip. The call goes dead, so John leaves her a two page note with instructions, telling her he plans to “take the dogs and Tao, too, out for a morning run” before he leaves. John hangs the note on his mantle. Later while laying in bed, John recalls how the animals came to live with them. His good friend, James Hunter, a university professor, is offered a twelve-week fellowship at Oxford University in London, and the whole family decides to go. His daughter, Elizabeth, realizes that there is no one to look after her cat Tao, and her brother, Peter, says the same about his dog, Bodger. John, who is visiting the family that day, offers to watch the pets while the Hunters are away. As John finishes recounting his memory, Tao wanders through the house and accidentally knocks half of the note to Mrs. Oakes into the fire lit below the mantle, leaving only the part of the note that says John is “taking the dogs and Tao, too.” John leaves the next morning. Luath overhears the sound of wild geese flying overhead as they fly home, and it inspires Luath to want to go back home as well. He leaves the house, and Bodger joins him, finally followed by Tao. They do not realize the journey is 200 miles, but know the direction. Mrs. Oakes and her husband, Bert, arrive at the house and are surprised to find the animals missing. She discovers the remaining half of John’s note and believes John took the animals with him.
The animals are well on their journey. Bodger, being elderly, has trouble keeping up and needs to rest often. On the first day, they hide from passing truck; they’re trying to avoid detection so that they are not recognized. By the next morning, Bodger is slowing down and getting tired. The animals rest in a nearby clearing. While Tao and Luath wander off to find food, two bear cubs approach Bodger and try to play with him. Their mother arrives and threatens to attack Bodger, thinking he was hurting her cubs. Tao returns to defend Bodger, but is also frightened by the bear. Luath returns as well and barks at the bear. The bear eventually runs off thanks to the combined effort of Luath and Tao. One day, they pass a cookhouse and Bodger tries stealing a bone from a trashcan, alerting the owner of the cookhouse who fires his gun at the animals and scares them off. Ten days later, they meet a hermit named Jeremy, who invites them into his cabin. He offers them stew to eat and seats at his table, but the dog stay on the floor as they’re trained to do, while Tao is more interested in Jeremy’s pet crow. Jeremy finishes all the uneaten stew by himself. The animals leave soon after. Many miles later, they come across a large river. Luath and Bodger swim across it, but Tao tries finding a bridge. He comes across a beaver dam, but while trying to jump a gap in the dam, the dam breaks underneath him and Tao plunges into the fast moving river. He is swept down the river while Luath tries to rescue him, but he is unable to find the cat. Luath and Bodger mourn the loss of their friend. Far downstream, a young girl named Helvi discovers Tao floating along on some debris. She and her parents rescue Tao and nurse him back to health. Tao stays with the family for some bit of time. One night, however, as Helvi is sleeping, Tao nuzzles her one last time as thanks before leaving the home to find Luath and Bodger.
Tao takes his time traveling now that he is alone. He eventually realizes he’s being followed by a lynx. The lynx attacks Tao and eventually corners him inside a log. A young boy arrives, out doing some hunting, and shoots at the lynx, frightening it off and unknowing allowing Tao to escape. Far along the journey, Luath and Bodger hear a cat calling and realize it’s Tao. The three animals are joyfully reunited. Together, they carry on. While looking for food, Luath spots a porcupine, but as he tries to snag it, his muzzle is pricked with several of the porcupine’s quills. The three friends keep moving, with Luath stopping often to sooth his burning muzzle in a nearby river. Farther along, Luath briefly wanders away from the other two and meets a hunter named James MacKenzie, who notices Luath’s face and brings him back to his house for treatment. When James arrives home, he discovers that his wife Nell has found Bodger, who has arrived at the house of his own accord. Tao follows the two dogs but stays outside. James treats Luath’s face, and he and Nell provide food and water to the two dogs. That night, James provides shelter for the dogs in his barn, deciding he will ask around for the owners the next day. Tao sneaks into the barn to rejoin his friends. Meanwhile, John Longridge returns home and learns the animals are missing. He eventually deduces that Luath has taken them home. John calls various rangers who all say they will get back to him the next day. The Hunters arrive home and John tells them what’s happened. Peter is concerned that Bodger couldn’t possibly make such a long journey. The animals escape James MacKenzie’s barn, continuing on their journey, crossing over some snow-capped mountains. The adults believe the pets will not make it home after such a long and dangerous trip. At Peter’s birthday, John gives him registration papers from a kennel, who are holding a Bull Terrier puppy for him. Elizabeth hears a dog barking in the distance and believes it’s Luath. James Hunter is skeptical, but whistles anyway. Luath comes charging across the plains within moments, barking happily and overjoyed to be home. Tao soon follows and also arrives home. Peter, meanwhile, is convinced Bodger has died, but is happy Luath and Tao are back. Peter then sees a familiar white shape coming over the horizon. He realizes it’s Bodger, who also happily runs over to his owner. The three animals are finally home, having finished their incredible journey.
Thoughts Before Watching
Megan: While I knew there was a book called The Incredible Journey, it wasn’t until we started prepping the list of movies for this challenge that I even learned this film existed. I’m much more familiar with Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey and its sequel Homeward Bound II: Lost in San Francisco. While I do love those movies, and really most animal movies in general, I’m a little hesitant going into this one knowing what we’ve already seen of animal actors in previous films. Are they really going to put these animal actors into dangerous situations, like those animals in previous movies?
Kevin: I know I’ve seen this before, and what’s interesting is how I can actually vividly recall certain scenes or moments even though I only saw the movie a couple times. I’ve seen the remake as well, although it’s been years since I last saw either of these. I remember sort of enjoying The Incredible Journey when I was little, but I think that may have only been because it had animals. As an adult, however, I’m now a little apprehensive going into this. So far in this challenge, Disney has not had a great track record when it comes to live animals and what they do on screen. Well, let’s dive on in to see how this holds up!
Thoughts After Watching
Kevin: So, I’ll get this out of the way right here. Overall, I enjoyed this. It’s almost like another True-Life Adventures film, or rather closer to a True-Life Fantasy film, but taken up a notch. There are definitely several problems with this, which Megan and I will both address, and although the stakes weren’t all that high to begin with, by the end of the film I was rooting for the three animals finishing their journey. Although I knew Bodger survived the trek, it’s still heart-warming to see him come bounding out from the trees and run towards his owner. Watching the animals interact with each other was fun, and they were constantly adorable. The friendship between Luath, Bodger, and Tao looks so believable that I wonder if the animal actors were buddies in real life. I realize they are actors and are trained, but the way animals behave around each other is more honest than how humans will sometimes act around one another (I mean, human actors can have some serious beef with each other but not show it on film). With animals, the bond and love they share for one another is not usually an act, so I very much think the animal actors must’ve had a genuine bond during the film. I couldn’t find any backstory on the animals outside the film, so while I don’t know it for sure, I think it’s obvious. Anyway, those things aside, this film isn’t one I’ll watch over and over again (and probably not again anytime soon), but I still had a good time.
I am not okay with animal actors in danger!
Megan: I get it, a story without conflict and danger isn’t at all interesting. I’m totally fine having elements of danger as part of the story. However, when it comes to creating a live action representation of a story’s dangers, there is some level of safety I expect to be maintained for the actors. While little-kid-me thought “no wonder actors get paid a lot—they get killed on screen!” adult-me recognizes just how many precautions are taken behind the scenes to ensure that everyone involved on set is safe. Today, that safety extends to animal actors, thanks to animal rights laws, but as we’ve already seen with Old Yeller and Swiss Family Robinson, many of these older films did not have the same protections in place for animal actors. While most of The Incredible Journey is pretty tame, there are still scenes that troubled me.
Megan: For instance, I don’t mind so much when the baby bears lick and climb on Bodger—I’m sure it’s a bit more than Bodger wants, but he doesn’t seem agitated by their playfulness. When the adult bear comes on the scene, though, we can see that the dogs and the cat are clearly agitated by the bear’s presence. The cat is especially stressed with its ears completely flattened to its head, hissing and yowling, fur standing on end, arched back, twitching tail—its whole body is saying “get this bear out of here!” While this is to be an expected reaction if domestic dogs and cats were to come across a bear in the wild, I feel the filmmakers are on ethically shaky ground for placing those animals in that situation together against their will. What’s more, the bear got uncomfortably close to the dogs and cat, and it looks like it almost could have injured one of them. I took similar issue with the rabbit chase later on. While I’m quite certain that the animal actor rabbit was not killed by the dog actor, the rabbit was still thoroughly chased by the dog, which I’m sure was a terrifying experience for the rabbit. The list goes on, with the cat facing the lynx, the dog facing the porcupine… Yes, some of these things happen in the wild, but again, when this situation is set up for human entertainment it becomes problematic.
Megan: That brings me to probably the most troubling scene—when the cat goes down the river rapids. In Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, it is quite clear after multiple viewings that the cat we see going down the river is a fake, intercut with close-up scenes of the real cat in what appears to be a stage set or a much safer part of the river made to look like rapids. In The Incredible Journey, however, the cat is very much real in many of those shots, and the river looks far too dangerous for a cat to swim in—even if the cat loves water and is a trained swimmer. Even asking the cat to leap the gap in the beaver dam, which is designed to fall apart so the cat falls into the water, seems terribly irresponsible of the film team. While I’m sure the animal trainer was on hand behind the scenes, ready to step in for a rescue at a moment’s notice, I still feel that the filmmakers took too many unnecessary risks with these animal actors that wouldn’t have been taken had they been human actors, all for the sake of human entertainment.
Kevin: There’s just no way I believe that the animals were 100% safe on set. They may not have been in a dangerous situation every moment, but I would bet that in several other scenes they very much were. Sadly, as there is little to no information about the real-life animals portraying Luath, Bodger, and Tao, we have no real way of knowing that they were okay. I feel for poor Rink the Labrador Retriever, who played Luath, having to get porcupine quills in his muzzle. They looked horrible and painful, and just far too real-looking that I desperately wanted to hope they were fake (and I’m unfortunately not sure if they are). Also, it’s not just the domestic animals that are harmed here. The rabbit has already been mentioned, but the large predators such as the bear and the lynx are victims, too. Even if they’re trained (I assume they are, but I’m not necessarily convinced), putting them in these situations for the sake of entertainment is cruel. For one thing, I’m sure the lynx was frightened by the sound of a gunshot, fake or not. Thank goodness animal cruelty laws were eventually drafted, although I think there are still many ways we can improve.
With that said, what’s weird for me is that in spite of all the danger and how real it felt, not once did I actually think the animals would perish on their journey. Granted, I already knew how the movie would end, but there are some films (as well as books or television shows) where even though you know how it ends you still feel like the next time you watch/read it some different outcome is going to occur. That’s the result of a well-written story that keeps you engaged in the plight of its characters. I didn’t feel that way at all with The Incredible Journey. Disney prefers to have happy endings in their films, but that reason in itself is not why I knew the movie would end happily. The stakes weren’t set up all that high, and for all the danger the animals do face, those situations pass too quickly to ever really think the animals could actually die.
The storytelling could use some work.
Megan: While I do love the narrator of this film, Rex Allen, for his narration of the 1973 animated film Charlotte’s Web, The Incredible Journey relies too heavily on narration to tell the story, and it loses my interest because of it. Some narration would have been fine, but there are times where the narration is entirely unnecessary because we could have inferred what was going on simply by watching the action. At other times, narration wasn’t included but might have been helpful to contextualize events. I much prefer the approach used in the remake, Homeward Bound, where the animals “talk.” True, the technology used to make animals’ lips move in today’s films hadn’t been invented when The Incredible Journey was created, yet Homeward Bound managed to find a work-around by showing close-ups of each animal as the voice actors speak for the animals. The movie The Adventures of Milo and Otis (one of my favorites as a kid) found yet another work-around where a single narrator performs the narration and the voices for the animal characters. It makes for a far more dynamic viewing experience, which helps keep audiences engaged.
Megan: Beyond the narration, the plot could use some work. The film doesn’t really get interesting until the trio encounter the bear. Prior to that I had been waiting for something exciting to happen. “Oh, humans are going to see them trying to leave!” But nothing happened. “Oh! They’re walking on a really tall train track bridge! Something bad is going to happen!” But nothing happened. Even when the animals finally encounter the bear, the conflict is soon over and it’s on to the next. I think part of what the plot suffers from is the episodic nature of each conflict they encounter. Things don’t really build from one incident to the next, so it’s hard to remember in what order things happened. The first real event that seems to have consequences is the cat falling into the river, since that leads to the cat being rescued by humans, and the dogs going off separately, yet that series of events is quickly wrapped up, too, with no real lessons learned from it. That ties into the other issue of character development. Because the story is told entirely through narration, and the plot is largely episodic, we don’t really see much character development. We don’t get any sense that these animals learned anything from their incredible journey through the wilderness, nor do the humans seem changed (though the Hunter family will likely think twice before entrusting John with their animals again…). I much prefer Homeward Bound because it does such a great job in developing these animal characters (the cat named Sassy especially lives up to her name in that film!) and giving them real flaws to heal and overcome through their journey.
The Hunters are uninteresting.
Kevin: Megan pointed out how Rex Allen’s narration left much to be desired, but there’s no better example of dull human characters in this film than the Hunter family, the very people that indirectly kick off the plot. For one thing, the acting from the folks playing the family is… well, pretty bad, especially the children’s acting. More importantly though, they’re why the dogs and the cat even go on their journey to begin with. What’s missing from the Hunters is a reason for us to like them. It’s not that they’re unlikable, it’s just that they… exist, and not much more than that. Professor James Hunter’s job offers him an incredible opportunity to teach in London for twelve weeks, and his family is able and excitedly willing to go with him (which, on a side note, I’m rather shocked it apparently took the family some time to realize they needed someone to watch their animals while they were gone. I get it’s exciting news, but that’s still a huge thing to overlook even when so excited about something). Anyway, while they’re gone, the animals are left with James’ friend John Longridge, whom the animals seem to like as if he were their family, too. But he’s not enough for them, especially Luath, so the three animals venture west so they can return home to the Hunters. But because we don’t get to know anything about the Hunters, we don’t really understand why the animals want to get back to them so badly. In fact, they’re not even the first humans we’re introduced to. Instead, we meet Longridge first, and our introduction to the Hunters is via a flashback as Longridge muses over how the animals came to stay with him. If the movie had focused a little more on the Hunter family, we might have empathized with the incredible journey more. This is one area Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey did a lot better.
Kevin: On the other hand, the portrayal of some of the other humans in the film is better, if only just. We spend more time with Longridge, long enough to see the drive he has in finding the animals. It’s clear he cares about them, and isn’t only just concerned with what his friend’s family will think of him. Mrs. Oakes and her husband, Bert, also have more scenes than the Hunters, and while we don’t see them enough to really get to know them, they’re still on screen more often and are active participants by helping Longridge find the animals. But the absolute best humans in the movie are the Nurmis and the MacKenzies. The Nurmis, and their young daugher Helvi (her parents aren’t named in the film, but are named on IMDb) take Tao into their home and nurse him back to health, and we see a short relationship form between Tao and Helvi. While it’s indeed short, it was just enough that it’s actually upsetting when Tao eventually leaves her (even the narrator said Helvi was lonely). The MacKenzies are similar to the Nurmis, bringing both Luath and Bodger into their home, removing the quills from Luath’s face, and providing the dogs much needed food, water, and shelter.
As for the other humans… two of them are hunters, one a middle-aged man and the other an adolescent boy, and their only on-screen appearances involve them shooting their guns. The other human is the hermit, Jeremy, and he was certainly a strange fellow.
What’s with the hermit?
Megan: I don’t recall a hermit character in the Homeward Bound remake, so I was initially excited to see how this character would play a role in the animals’ journey. However, I was quickly disappointed. Here is a guy whom the narrator tells us loves all animals. Yet this same animal-lover is completely clueless about feeding animals! If I had three stray animals come to my home, the first thing I would do (after checking their collars to see if I can contact their owners—which, on a side note, these animals are wearing collars the entire time, yet not a single human stops to check if they have tags? I mean even Lady and the Tramp makes a big deal of pets having ID tags, so how are these animals wearing collars but no ID tags?). Anyway… The first thing I would do is offer the strays food and water. If they did not eat the food where I originally set it, I would try offering it to them in a different way, either by wafting the bowl in front of their nose to see if they’re interested, or by hand-feeding them. While it’s completely comical to see the hermit sit at each chair around the table to eat the food he thinks the animals have refused (because they’re good dogs and a good cat who know they’re not allowed to eat from the table), it also completely contradicts how much he supposedly loves animals. I haven’t read the book that inspired these films, so I’m guessing this comical scene might have originated in the book, but in any case I find the characterization of the hermit to be a bit misconstrued.
No surprise, it fails the Bechdel test.
Megan: There are very few female characters in this film to begin with, and there are even fewer instances where two female characters are in the same scene together, let alone talking to one another. However, even when two women are in a scene together they are talking about one of the dogs or the cat. Since all three animals are male, it means the only conversations two women have with each other are still about a male character, thus failing the Bechdel test. What’s more, every time we see an adult female character she is either a mother or a homemaker (of her own home or, in the case of Mrs. Oakes, someone else’s home). The two little girls in the movie, Elizabeth and Helvi, don’t quite fall into this trap, but Helvi, the girl who rescues Tao from the river, is entrusted with care-taking and homemaking chores, while Elizabeth, the girl who actually owns Tao, hardly gets any screen time (though we do see her carrying out her brother’s birthday cake, accompanied by her mother). This presents a rather limited view of women, since the male humans get to make all the decisions and rescue the animals, while the male animals are the ones going off on an adventure. There isn’t much to aspire to if you’re a young girl looking for a female role model in this film. The best bet is perhaps Helvi, who sees Tao in the river and implores her father to rescue him. Yet even she is then abandoned by that same cat, which we can imagine is a heartbreaking discovery for her the next morning.
Verdict
Kevin: 5
Megan: 4
Final Score: 4.5
Have you seen The Incredibly Journey and/or its remake Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey? Share your thoughts about these films in the comments below!
