By Richard Winters
My Rating: 1 out of 10
4-Word Review: Government threatens their home.
After surviving their first harsh mountain winter the Robinson family (Robert Logan, Susan Damante Shaw, Heather Rattray, Ham Larsen) are happy to go outdoors and enjoy the warmer weather of Spring, but there’s an unexpected problem. While doing a survey of the area a Forest Ranger (William Bryant) has surmised that the family doesn’t have rights to the property that they’re on. They must prove it’s a legitimate mining claim or move out.
I’ll give this film some credit, at least initially, that they made an attempt, albeit a feeble one, to mix things up. I was fully expecting more animal attacks, the formula had one occurring every 15-minutes in the first two installments, but with the exception of one minor one that happens to the boy when he runs away from home, there really isn’t any, at least to the family members. There is however, a confrontation between some mountain lions and the family’s pet dog, but the dog is able to fight them off, though I started to wonder how many times he could keep doing this. In the first two films the dog was also instrumental in scaring the other wildlife away, but you would think a domesticated pet would be at a disadvantage to one that had been living in the wild all their lives and were bigger in size. The fact that the dog constantly survives these battles and never even gets injured starts to raise the implausibility meter.
The two kids also feud a bit, which I found refreshing. Even the Brady Bunch had some conflicts between the siblings, as most any normal family does, so seeing everyone here be peachy towards each other the majority of the time is not only boring, but unrealistic. However, their disagreement, which amounts to nothing more than the two not talking to each other, which we don’t even see, but have described by the two parents, doesn’t last for more than a few minutes and then it’s all back to ‘happy family’.
The mom finally does go back to L.A., something she had lightly threatened to do in the first two films but just like with the kids fighting it doesn’t add up to much as she comes back and says she’ll never leave again. Why then even add these elements if by the end it makes no difference to the story?
On a lesser note, are the bear cubs residing in the family’s cabin who never seem to grow and if anything, appear to have gotten smaller than when they were in Part 2. The Boomer character played by George ‘Buck’ Flower is also an issue as he’s a mountain man but never carries a gun making you wonder how he survives without one. For instance, how does he protect himself as animal attacks happen a lot, at least with the family, and what does he use to hunt for food? Maybe he lives completely off of berries and fish, but by the looks of his protruding belly it appears he’s eating something more.
Out of everything it’s the music that’s the worst. Because the story is so thin there are several segments featuring the family frolicking around while this sappy chorus by studio musicians get played that’s so sugary it’ll give you diabetes just by listening to it. It also has a dated sound from the 1940’s. The 70’s though was a period of many interesting music genres like rock, disco, soul, and even southern rock and media aimed at kids was trying to replicate it like ‘Sesame Street’ that had the Pointer Sisters singing a song that teaches children to count, but with a funky beat. Even religious people got into the times by introducing Christian Rock, so why does this movie have a soundtrack that’s so grossly out-of-step?
Spoiler Alert!
The third act in which the family openly refuses to leave their home after the Forest Ranger insists proves to be a letdown too as there’s no tense confrontation. Instead, the Ranger’s helicopter mysteriously crashes for no reason as the weather was sunny and when the family nurses him back to health he agrees to no longer push them out. However, all it would take is another government official to come along and the conflict would start all over making the tidy wrap-up/resolution unconvincing. The only positive thing to say is this was thankfully the final film of the series.
My Rating: 1 out of 10
Released: November 21, 1979
Runtime: 1 Hour 40 Minutes
Rated G
Director: Jack Couffer
Studio: Pacific International Enterprises
Available: DVD, Amazon Video, Roku
Scopophilia 