The Incredible Journey
Directed by Fletcher Markle
Written by James Algar from a book by Sandra Burnford
1963/Canada/USA
Cangary/Walt Disney Productions
First viewing/Amazon Instant
[box] Animals are such agreeable friends – they ask no questions; they pass no criticisms. George Eliot [/box]
Just what the title promises plus all the cuteness anyone could handle.
A professor is offered a short-term teaching assignment at Oxford and leaves his family’s pets – Bodger, an ancient Bull Terrier; Luath, a Golden Retriever; and Tao, a Siamese cat – with a family friend. Everything goes nicely until the friend goes on a hunting trip and leaves the pets with house sitters. Something about being with strangers awakens a strong instinct in Luath to return home to the professor’s house. The other two follow along. The journey will take them 200 miles over Canada’s wilderness. They have numerous adventures on the way along with encounters with kindly humans.
These are some super talented animal actors and there is plenty to enjoy if you like this sort of thing. I do.
This was my younger brother’s favorite movie when he was two or three and I was four or five. I liked it too, but I remember my brother crying because he wanted to see it again and The Incredible Journey was no longer in the theaters.
(We must have seen a special screening or a kids matinee or something because it’s a 1963 film and neither of us was even born until a bit later. We probably saw it in 1967 or 1968.)
I DVRed it off TCM earlier this year and we had a blast watching it again – finally – fifty years later.
I wish I had seen it as a kid! I can see how one would want to watch it over and over.