I really loved this film, and though I can appreciate the sentiments of the people who have posted - in many cases - their seventy plus year recollections of it, they are wrong in some of the more important details. The dog Bugle Ann is not caught in a trap one night during a raging storm and found the next morning by a heartbroken Lionel Barrymore. I almost didn't watch this movie believing that this would be the outcome. It is not. The dog's fate turns out to be the big mystery of the film, and what became of her is not resolved for years after her disappearance one night.
Lionel Barrymore plays farmer Spring Davis, basically retired, who spends his evenings with other fellows in a Missouri farm community letting their hounds loose to chase foxes. In modern times this rather cruel sport has me rooting for the foxes, but that doesn't mean that Davis' devotion to the runt of the litter of one of his hounds that dies in childbirth won't mightily tug at your heart strings. Of course this runt grows up to be Bugle Ann, named as such for her "bugling" bark. Trouble develops when a grumpy old man, Jacob Terry, returns along with his daughter Camden (Maureen O'Sullivan) to the home once owned by his wife, whose family "ran hounds" themselves years before.
Apparently, Jacob was an unhappily married man when his wife was alive, laying the blame of much of his unhappy life on the people of the area to which he has returned. Since his daughter reminds him of his wife, he can find only fault with her too. Jacob has a black hole of a soul - if he's unhappy everyone is going to be, and his first act is to put up a fence for the sheep he intends to raise that is intentionally dangerous to the hounds that run near his property. Tempers rapidly escalate between Spring and Jacob, partially over the fence and partially over the fact that Jacob doesn't want his daughter to have anything to do with Spring's son, Benjy, who has taken a real liking to Camden. One night Bugle Ann goes missing, one member of the search party thinks he hear a dog's painful yip on Jacob's property, and a tragic confrontation results.
The cast in this film is outstanding, and although it is a family drama in the MGM tradition with a bit of an outlandish happy ending, it is certainly a beautiful piece of work. I particularly loved Spring's speech about how anything or anyone else could desert a man - his friends, his money, even his children, but that the loyal dog would take his last breath standing by his master despite his circumstances. It's too bad this one isn't televised more often or better remembered.
Lionel Barrymore plays farmer Spring Davis, basically retired, who spends his evenings with other fellows in a Missouri farm community letting their hounds loose to chase foxes. In modern times this rather cruel sport has me rooting for the foxes, but that doesn't mean that Davis' devotion to the runt of the litter of one of his hounds that dies in childbirth won't mightily tug at your heart strings. Of course this runt grows up to be Bugle Ann, named as such for her "bugling" bark. Trouble develops when a grumpy old man, Jacob Terry, returns along with his daughter Camden (Maureen O'Sullivan) to the home once owned by his wife, whose family "ran hounds" themselves years before.
Apparently, Jacob was an unhappily married man when his wife was alive, laying the blame of much of his unhappy life on the people of the area to which he has returned. Since his daughter reminds him of his wife, he can find only fault with her too. Jacob has a black hole of a soul - if he's unhappy everyone is going to be, and his first act is to put up a fence for the sheep he intends to raise that is intentionally dangerous to the hounds that run near his property. Tempers rapidly escalate between Spring and Jacob, partially over the fence and partially over the fact that Jacob doesn't want his daughter to have anything to do with Spring's son, Benjy, who has taken a real liking to Camden. One night Bugle Ann goes missing, one member of the search party thinks he hear a dog's painful yip on Jacob's property, and a tragic confrontation results.
The cast in this film is outstanding, and although it is a family drama in the MGM tradition with a bit of an outlandish happy ending, it is certainly a beautiful piece of work. I particularly loved Spring's speech about how anything or anyone else could desert a man - his friends, his money, even his children, but that the loyal dog would take his last breath standing by his master despite his circumstances. It's too bad this one isn't televised more often or better remembered.