The Light in the Forest (1958) Online

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.

I confess that Conrad Richter's "The Light in the Forest" is one my all-time favorite books which I have literally read over a dozen times. So my opinion of Walt Disney's film is heavily influenced by my love of the book.

Richter's novel is set in 1764 colonial America when the Ohio tribes were forced to return all their white captives in order to ratify a peace treaty with the British. Among these captives is 15 yr old True Son who was born John Butler and abducted by Delaware Indians from his Pennsylvannia home when he was four. True Son was adopted into the tribe and during the course of his eleven year captivity ceases to believe that he's a captive, forgets his real family, and views himself as an Indian. He also learns to hate all white people. Yet despite these views and his love for his Delaware home and family (which are the only ones he knows), he's forced to return to the family he was born into. He rebels against this with his whole being. He regards his real family as abductors. Even worse, he finds himself related to men who butchered a village of peaceful Christian Indians. True Son dreams of escaping this white prison and returning to his beloved life as a young god in the forest. Eventually, circumstances created by racial hatred cause True Son to find himself rejected by the two worlds that have laid claim to him. It is deeply moving and sad novel of a young man torn apart by the claims of blood and loyalty.

So how well did Disney's film capture the message and tone of Richter's novel? It didn't. To put it bluntly, this movie is a complete butchery of Richter's novel. It starts off badly with a cheesy choir singing a song entitled "The Light in the Forest" during the opening credits and it gets a whole lot worse. James MacArthur with his stocky frame and curly light brown hair is physically wrong to play the part of the lithe, dark, and black-haired True Son. Also, he did not have the acting ability to capture melancholy sadness and hostility of the character.

However, these are quibbles when it comes to the main fault of the movie- sanitizing and/or completely doing away with the entire theme of racial hatred which is the central subject of the novel. True Son knows that he was born white, but he loathes how white people live. He knows that some of his white relations are virulent racists (the character Uncle Wilse is a murdering butcher of Indian women and children) and later is confronted by the fact that the Delawares are not guiltless of committing atrocities. Of course, all this heavy stuff was too much for a 1950's Disney movie so it is not touched upon. However, that leads to the question- why did Disney buy the film rights if they were not going to address the main point of the novel?

So if film abandons the central focus of the novel then what is it about? Basically, the movie has a made-up, syrupy teen romance replacing all the dark elements of the novel. Upon his return to his white family,True Son is befriended by a lovely indentured servant girl and a gentle romance starts to bloom (ignoring that in the book True Son finds white girls unattractive in comparison to Indian girls and wants nothing to do with them). True Son escapes to his Indian family, but then decides he liked being with white people after all and returns to his blonde girlfriend. It is a far cry from the novel's ending: a forlorn teenage boy alone in the forest with tears filling his eyes and asking: "Then who is my father?"

Maybe I am being overly harsh on this film. On its own merits, its a well-made piece of Disney escapism. But as a film version of a beloved novel it is an insult.

James MacArthur is very good in early role as young white man in 1760s Philadelphia who, years earlier, was kidnapped and raised by the Delaware Indian tribe, now being traded back to his people as part of a peace agreement. The white man's customs have the kid alienated and sullen, but a sympathetic frontiersman and a lovely servant-girl try to help him adjust. MacArthur has a great masculine stance and a firm jaw--and he's unhurt by his Mohawk haircut--but he's perhaps too rigid; the character might have stood some silly, self-effacing moments. Everything in this adaptation of Conrad Richter's book is taken with the utmost seriousness, but where's the heart of the piece? And with whom should our sympathies lie? Wendell Corey overdoes his role as a town bully--not only racist and a liar, but an alcoholic as well--though Fess Parker's good-hearted scout relieves some of the tension in this solemn scenario. Carol Lynley makes her film debut (playing a white girl named, of all things, Shenandoe!); she's sweet flirting with MacArthur, and looks like Alice in Wonderland in her apron-dresses. Well-produced Walt Disney effort given by-the-books treatment, as if it were written and directed by stodgy history professors, though still engaging for fans of old-fashioned entertainment. *** from ****

WE HAVE READ that Mr. Disney did not have a reputation for his being much of a champion of Civil Rights and for Equality among the members of the Brotherhood of Man. These accusations dated to the early 1960s and even earlier; when the movement was in its infancy. Walt passed on in 1965.

ALTHOUGH BY TODAY'S standards and with the benefit of 20-20 hindsight, it would appear that there is some merit to these accusations. But one must take into account that Disney was born 1901, long before the First World War and hence, his attitudes were those of so many others of that period.

HOWEVER, HIS THOUGHTFUL and kindly handling of sensitive issues that were very important then as now, was indicative of the true feelings of the man. As case in point, consider his adaption of the Joel Chandler Harris 'Uncle Remus' stories; which was set in the South where it was the labor of Black people in bondage to the plantation owners that drove the agricultural economy.

THE RESULTING PICTURE in the form of a mixture of both animation and live action, SONG OF THE SOUTH, is touching, humorous and pays particularly close attention to the emerging culture of the Black American.* AS FOR THE story, it is a well plotted, beautifully photographed drama of the pre-Revolutionary War American Colonies.

SET IN OLD Philadelphia, circa 1760, it is done up in a most convincing manner; as to transport the viewer back to the days when even Benjamin Franklin was somewhat youthful. It may have been Disney's best physical production in the Period Piece tradition.

THE PLOT REVOLVES around the return of a Caucasian boy, born Johnny Butler, who had been kidnapped by hostile Indians. The boy was raised from the time as a young child as a member of the tribe as, in native aboriginal tongues,"True Son". The young man, now a teenager, is caught between two peoples' cultures; which was really two worlds.

HE IS TORN between the two very different ways of life and finds that he is considered to be alien to both. Eventually, we get the drift that he is going to resettle and be assimilated into the society of colonists; thus returning to his original, biological family. The repatriating of the young man is happily facilitated with his romantic involvement with a beautiful, young blonde colonial girl (played by beautiful, young and blonde Carol Lynley.**

THIS PICTURE, PERHAPS more than any other Disney Live Action production, boasts of an outstanding assembly of supporting players. In addition to young Miss Lynley and Mr. MacArthur, we have: Fess Parker, Joanne Dru, Wendell Corey, Jessica Tandy, John McIntire, Joseph Calleia, Frank Ferguson, Marian Seldes, Dean Fredericks and others.***

ALTHOUGH THE STORY'S adaptation is said to have certain liberties with the storyline and certain of the characterizations, it was both very dramatic and effective in its ending. It is a call to action for all to be more understanding and kind to others; regardless of whatever is their membership in any racial, ethnic, national or religious affiliations.

AND THIS MESSAGE is the one imparted by Mr. Disney, himself.

NOTE * It is never clear in the movie as whether or not that the Black People are slave or free. The topic never really comes up.

NOTE: ** On a DIDSNEYLAND TV Episode that was a promo for the movie, it was announced that this was Carol Lynley's first on screen kiss. (It was a far different time!)

NOTE: *** Even Iron Eyes Cody, the son of Sicilian immigrants, was featured as an Indian of the Delaware tribe.

Disney's great movie. A very beautiful, unforgettable movie. It is a very human and very exciting film.The movie has a very interesting argument,the readjustment of a white boy raised by Indians, who lives many years with the Indians and he is forced to return to white society,after the signing of a peace treaty. I am charmed with James MacArthur.I like James MacArthur.He is beautiful and excellent, great actor.He has soul, a great captivation. My favorite scene is when Johnny (MacArthur) returns to his home and meets again with his biological parents, and also the scenes of love with Shenandoe (Carol Lynley). Others excellent actors who appear in the movie: an magnificent Fess Parker, splendid Frank Ferguson, affectionate Jessica Tandy, lovely Carol Lynley, beautiful Joanne Dru, Wendell Corey, Joseph Calleia,Rafael Campos...It is one of the Disney's best histories.The movie has emotion, romance, nice music and beautiful landscape.Wonderful movie.

Mainly, the story, based on the novel of the same name, of a boy: True Son(James McArthur), Caucasian by birth, captured by the Delaware 11 years ago, when 4. It takes place in southwestern Pennsylvania and adjacent Ohio in 1764, which is just after the conclusion of the French and Indian War. At this time, most Delaware are located in Ohio, on their gradual westward migration ultimately to Oklahoma. The British want the Delaware to sign a peace treaty granting them exclusive rights to the general area of present Ohio. One of the provisions is that the Delaware must give up all white captives. Unfortunately, this rigid provision makes no allowance for the fact that some of these captives much prefer to remain identified as Delaware. This is especially true of those captured when young in the distant past, and those who have given birth or fathered a child while so captive. True Son was adopted by Chief Cuyloga(Joseph Calleia), cannot remember his natal parents, and has no wish to be returned to white society. Thus, the crux of the story relates to True Son's forced repatriation into white society, where he takes on his birth name: Johnny Butler, and is housed with his birth parents. We experience some of the hardships he encounters toward becoming an accepted member of the white community. He refuses to give up his Mohawk hair style, which constantly reminds others of his Delaware past. He must relearn English ,and learn to chop down and split trees, making fences of some, and various other skills. He must face people like Uncle Wilse(Wendell Corey) who hate all Indians, and perhaps have killed some. Also, he should try to cultivate a friendship with a girl of his age range(He does, with indentured servant(Shenandoe, played by 16y.o. Carol Lynley). ... At one point, Johnny runs back to become True Son again. But, Chief Cuyloga tells him he must return to the whites. At this point, he doesn't feel comfortable being a Delaware or a white man. What to do? Whom to trust? See the film to find out. I will say that the film ends on an upbeat note, but how long can it last? The film is especially suitable for teens, but many adults will enjoy it too.