Advanced search

The ongoing saga of the Martin family and their beloved collie, Lassie.

Ben Handley, a man Jerry Austin detests, is selected to be the trucking company's new parts manager. While giving him a lift to Buffalo, Jerry and Mike discover that Ben knows absolutely nothing about truck engines. Furthermore, he has a serious drinking problem. When the truckers encounter an accident where the driver has been seriously injured, Ben suddenly displays hidden medical skills and takes charge of saving the dying man.

After a couple whose son was blinded in the war and had a collie named Lassie try to buy Lassie for their son's adjustment, Jeff agrees to let the couple borrow Lassie for two weeks but Lassie's return goes awry.

Lassie comes to the rescue of a cantankerous neighbor who falls seriously ill.

Young Jeff Miller inherits a neighbor's collie and, while Lassie has trouble adapting to the Miller home, she is mistreated by the deceased's misanthropic hired man Wills who hangs on to steal the deceased's hidden cash.

While the gang is at a wedding, Lassie runs after a bakery truck to a delivery, is taken on a hitchhike by transient worker at a delivery, given by the worker to a little girl from whom she flees and helped by campers before coming home.

Lassie is in the barn and about to have puppies but looks ill at ease, and Jeff is worried. He wants to fetch a doctor but there is a windstorm which called Gramps away to repair lines. Without Gramps to help, Mom advises Jeff to pray. Later that night, the windstorm has died but Gramps is still gone, Jeff decides he just has to ride his bike 5 miles in the darkness to veterinarian Dr. Wilson but Mom won't let him. Jeff advocates for a world where kids can prevail with their perspective on doing the right thing. Nonetheless, he relents and is about to head for bed as told, but Mom changes her mind, lets him make the 5-mile trek in the dark. His bike blows a tire on the way, and he walks the rest of the way to Dr. Wilson's house, where Mrs. Wilson answers and says her husband is away on a call. She wants him to come in for cookies but Jeff just has to find help. As Jeff turns to leave, she tells him to stay on the main road and she will have her husband look for him on his return drive home. Dr. Wilson does see Jeff and they drive over to the Miller's barn and he gives Lassie a shot. Gramps drives up just as Dr. Wilson is heading out. The last scene has Gramps and Mom looking at a tired Lassie laying in the barn with her several pups, and a very tired Jeff asleep in the hay next to them.

Jeff is enthralled by the plethora of tall tales told by the new farmhand Mr. Peabody but Gramps is chafed at folksy Peabody's partial falsehoods and peculiar ways and what he perceives as these things influences on Jeff.

Ellen must go to a forgotten church meeting so she leaves a little boy for whom she is babysitting with Jeff and Porky, the two of whom suffer from the mean deeds and tricks of the boy.

After Jeff' shows dog show operators Lassie's skills at a carnival, the two men steal the dog when Jeff will not sell her so Jeff jumps their truck to prevent the theft.

Since Ben Nielsen is a liar, he is not believed when he tells that Jeff is trapped in a cave by a rock he has angrily moved in front of the cave entrance but can not budge.

Jeff agrees to babysit a little girl at a time he was to join Porky in receiving rides on a road machine and so has Gramps temporarily relieve him without making sure that Gramps and the little girl understand the change of plans.

Ellen cares for a divorced old friend' s troubled daughter whose repressed anger is manifest in the destruction of things dear to others even to the extent that the girl will put Lassie mortal danger so Lassie will lose a racing contest.

Jeff is met at the lake by an escaped convict who threatens harm to Gramps and Ellen if Jeff does bring him clothes and food while being silent about the man's location.

When hunters kill a doe, Jeff rescues her fawn which Lassie is blamed for harming until livestock is killed by a canine believed to be a wolf.

A man who, unknown to the Millers, has been a prizefighter who killed a man in the ring signs on to be a Miller farmhand and is perceived by formerly admiring Jeff as coward for not standing up against another farmhand bully.

Ellen, at first mortified by Jeff's discovery of his deceased father's rifle, allows him to play with unloaded weapon but Jeff proves reckless with the weapon when Mr., King loads it to kill a fox on his farm.

A family of Gypsies decides to setup camp on the Miller's property.

Ellen takes a job as singer at radio station in Capitol City and finds a small apartment that does not allow dogs so Lassie stays on the farm with Gramps but Ellen takes Jeff who is made miserable by lack of activities and a mean neighbor.

Jeff and Gramps become jealous, after Clay asks Ellen to go out dancing with him.

When the new school teacher prohibit pets in the classroom one student sneaks in a snake.

After Jeff bests another boy in a fight, the other youth decides to exact revenge by claiming that Lassie bit him while his attorney argues that the dog should be killed for being a vicious nuisance.

An unscrupulous water company executive trying to acquire by any means water rights from the Miller and other area farms is pushed into an old well by Lassie when he mistreats Jeff.

Jeff considers running away when he is forced to study arithmetic including a special test after copying from Porky which study could cause him to miss the circus with Gramps.

Jeff whose father is deceased is told by a bully that he does not belong at the church father and son banquet but,, after Jeff rejects Gramps company, Ellen injects her self into the event and gains the participants' admiration.