Seven Alone

A pioneer family heads out west. All of them are likable enough except for the oldest boy, John Sager, whom, if I were working on this family's farm, he would be found hanging from the nearest tree by nightfall.

A perennial bully, John Sager isn't worth the stink of the farts he pushes out. His lazy, lying, loathsome presence wouldn't make good fertilizer, but the parents (Dewey Martin and Anne Collings) haven't quite given up on the little sonuvabitch yet.

Other poor souls who must contend with John's evil and hateful self are Billy Shaw (James Griffiths) and Kit Carson (Dean Smith). Most of the children in the film are real-life siblings, but the best actress of these is the non-related little girl, Debbie Van Orden.

Passable family fare. Good performances by Martin, Collings, and Smith.

Afte the explosion of sex and violence in movies, even more the twisted amorality of in the late 60's, there was a predictable backlash. By the early 70's, Hollywood had found a market for "nice" stories such as The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie, not to mention a bunch of other knock-offs that failed. This family-oriented counter-revolution extended to film, with Disney putting out lots of cheap, dumb-but-funny Kurt Russell movies and cheaper American International-like studios doing Grizzly-Frontier-Adams-Fremont in the Rockies productions. Some sucked pond water and some were even worse. Maybe the worst I've ever seen is Seven Alone, a story of a flock of 1840's era kiddies fighting their way along the Oregon Trail after their folks die (a blessing if human worth is based on acting ability).

I grabbed this flick off the shelf at the local library, figuring it would be digestible cheese for my family to watch. Sure enough, my wife is enjoying it and my 9-year-old is loving it. Because I'm a pain-in-the-keister critic, I'm bleeding profusely from biting my tongue in order not to turn family movie night into Mystery Science Theatre 3000 with me playing all three parts of the audience. I try to be a good dad.

This is so awful. I feel sorry for Dewey Martin and Aldo Ray, two accomplished and successful actors from the 40's through 60's. They must have been so very desperate for parts that they took the offer to do this hopelessly underfunded, underacted, and badly produced mess.

And yet . . .

There is some small bit of accuracy in this gunk. While another reviewer on this site had a small scale hissy over the movie being politically incorrect in its treatment of American Indians, I remind you that when a principal character refers to the natives as "dirty redskins," that's the least of the insults that were hurled at Indians by Caucasian settlers. They were hated and feared, and to our ancestors, the natives were a pestilence. Doesn't make it right or wrong, just accurate.

My recommendation would be to skip this dull nonsense (even if the book it was based on was a good work of history) and stick with the tasty cheese put out by the Disney dairy. The most you'll get is gas. Seven Alone gave me a splitting headache.

I never read the book that this movie's based on. It's about the Sager Party. The father, Henry, the mother Naome, and six children, starting with the oldest son, John, who leave Missouri for Oregon along the Oregon Trail in 1844. At the time they leave, Naome, John's mother, is pregnant with a seventh child. Catherine, born along the way, comes into a world of hardship. Henry dies of blood poisoning in an Indian raid. Naome, the mother, dies of pneumonia. The other members of the wagon train don't want John and his six brothers and sisters in the wagon train and order them to go back to Missouri. All the men in the wagon train regard John as shiftless and lazy. However, John refuses to turn back and is determined to get his family to Oregon. Along the way, they meet Kit Carson, and other historical characters. A couple of reviewers didn't like it. I liked it when it was on TV back in '70s. It should be remembered that back in the '70s, it didn't take very long for movies to make it to television from the movie screen.

As one who grew up in Oregon and remembers reading in history about the Sager children on the Oregon Trail, this film has personal sentimental value.

I agree completely with the other reviewer's comments regarding the flaws in this film. Yes, it does seem very low budget and amateurish, especially by today's standards. There are some fairly believable scenes here and there, but the true greatness of this film is in its historical value. The fact that this adventure profiles a family during the great migration on the Oregon trail, using real characters, not made-up ones, to do so is unique. It seems today's great epics, Titanic, Pearl Harbor, etc. tend to rely on fictional characters that pollute the authenticity of the real story. The irony is that real people are far more interesting and compelling as well as being more believable.

The real Sager story is a great one and deserves a good telling using the best available. I'd like to see it attempted again with better writing, acting, and production. Unfortunately, Hollywood's recent track record for remakes is mixed at best and I wouldn't hold my breath expecting such a remake to be even as true to the facts as this one was.

In spite of its flaws, this film is a must see for anyone wanting to know about the history of the Oregon Trail though films. Any collection of Oregon Trail related films will include it.

Roger

This film was actually based on a true story of a families adventure on the Oregon trail. It was told to the writer by one of the actual daughters in the turn of the century. It is clearly not politically correct. (Nor was the frontier in 1843.) The family was actually following a structure based on the Bible. The Natives were called Indians and were not happy to see their land being taken, or their game shot. So they fought back, killed and stole what they could. The white settlers were clearly ignorant and it shows. (wow, what a surprise!) That said, my children were clearly entertained (as they were with "Against a crooked sky") A capable cast, most of the children were relatives in real life. No real standouts but fun. The ending was a bit abrupt, I was left wondering, is that it? Filmed on location so it has some nice cinematography.