Copyright 8 February 1945 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corp. New York opening at the Victoria: 15 March 1945. U.S. release: March 1945. U.K. release: 16 July 1945. Australian release: 30 August 1945. Lengths: 7,285 feet, 81 minutes (U.S.A.); 7,212 feet, 80 minutes (Australia).
SYNOPSIS: White colt loses important race, but redeems himself by defeating outlaw stallion and recovering rancher's mares.
NOTES: First and only film to be lensed entirely in Monopack Technicolor. The results were satisfactory, though marred by an occasional bluish tinge and the inability to shoot night scenes because of the great amount of light the process required.
COMMENT: The popularity of My Friend Flicka was so great, a sequel was inevitable. Mary O'Hara obliged in 1943 and Fox followed suit two years later, using no less than six of the original players (counting "Misty").
Unfortunately, Fox used few of the original technicians. Even the writers are different. The result is a film that is a considerable disappointment. There are still some grand scenes with the horses (lensed against eye-catching locations in Oregon, California and Utah), but the human players are somewhat disappointing.
Ken is no longer the butterfingered dreamer of Flicka, but a more stereotyped Hollywood youth with less winning characteristics - rather awkwardly acted too. Rita Johnson has unwisely adopted a new hair style and James Bell has even more opportunities for phoney sentimentalizing. Preston Foster is the same dull actor. Ralph Sanford is earnestly awful.
Even more embarrassing is the inept direction by Louis King. A younger brother of Henry King, Louis had a remarkably undistinguished career, its high point being Charlie Chan In Egypt. Despite his maladroit handling of Thunderhead, it was such an enormous commercial success he was rewarded with Smoky (on which he worked with the same photographer, editor and art directors, as well as horse trainer Jack Lindell, plus the writers of both Flicka and Thunderhead) which made even more money. But this time, however, his employers began to wake up to him. An unusually large number of fans wrote to Fox complaining that King's clumsy camera placements failed to disguise the obvious cues given to Smoky by his off-camera trainer. It was so rare for a studio to get any letters panning directors, King was let go after finishing Bob, Son of Battle. He free-lanced thereafter (oddly landing back at Fox for his final film, Massacre, in 1956).
Anyway, Thunderhead provides a great example of a "B" director struggling to cope with the windfall of a large budget. Speed is the essence of "B" film-making. Even the actors speak fast. Here, Foster rattles off his lines with admirable celerity, although his enthusiasm for speed is obviously not shared by his co-stars, particularly James Bell who seems determined to out-do the contrived amiability of his original impersonation.
In order to use up his budget, King is often forced to indulge in an elaborate number of camera set-ups. The scene in which Sanford visits the Foster household is filmed from just about every conceivable angle - except the right ones - and the maladroit way in which all these shots are butted together has to be seen to be believed.
One of the chief pleasures of Flicka was Alfred Newman's stirring music score. Here his rousing themes are adapted by Cyril Mockridge and disappointingly transmuted at half-strength.
Still, the landscapes are impressive (particularly the Utah climax) - and the horses. In fact, three scenes stand out: the foal's struggle to climb the side of a slippery gully (a routine example of Hollywood wizardry which still evokes howls of protests from animal lovers who don't realize it's all contrived inside a comfortable studio without the slightest danger or stress to the animals involved), the race, and the climactic fight (another routine but reasonably effective example of Hollywood trickery, achieved mainly by under-cranking and deceptive camera angles).
For a full account of the effects achieved in these films, see The Fascinating Techniques of Training Movie Horses by Anthony Amaral (Wilshire Book Company, North Hollywood, 1974). And for yet another sequel, see Green Grass of Wyoming.
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