All nine parts can be found here.
The dogs were all trained by William Koehler (but I have no interest in going down that road again.)
And the film is narrated by Rex Allen, who is best known for being that deep-voiced Southern narrator in lots of Disney productions.
This film was remade in 1993. Instead of a bull terrier, a Labrador, and Siamese, this version had a golden retriever (voiced by Don Ameche), an American bulldog (voiced by Michael J. Fox), and Himalayan (voiced by Sally Field). This newer version had voice-dubbing for the animal characters, which some people find annoying. (I am not one of them). It also took place in the High Sierras of California, not the wilderness of Eastern Canada.
The 1963 film closely follows Sheila Burnford’s novel.
Do you suppose the version where Koehler trained the animals had the usual “no animals were harmed…” disclaimer?
I’m only kidding, people!
Sorta.
Pibble,
You’re playing with fire.
Trust me on that one!
I liked the original better. Seemed less ahhh….youthful… and more appropriate or something
juvenile is the word I was looking for, less juvenile.
Yeah, the modern fad of adding voices (and digitally-altered talking mouths) to animal movies really ruined them for me.
There is a lot of animal to animal interaction in this film.
Cat/lynx, cat/bear, dog/rabbit, dog/porcupine, how was all of this ‘taught’ in such a way no animals were harmed?
Back in those days, losing a few critters in the process of filming was just part of the “expense” that the general public didn’t know about. Remember(if yer old enough) all the uniformly brown horses in so many of the Westerns? This was partially so that when one got killed during filming it could be replaced without anyone noticing. It ain’t a perfect world yet, but things tend to be much better(in some countries) than it used to be for animals on film. Don’t EVEN get the malamute people going on one of my favorite old Disney features “Niki, wild Dog Of The North”!!!!! When I first heard about the remake of “The Incredible Journey”, it irked me that they changed the animal breeds around from the book/original movie. But after watching(and loving) the remake(which was some painstaking animal training for sure!), I realize one reason WHY they must have changed an English Bull Terrier to an American Bulldog–English Bull Terriers look exactly the same in expression no matter what they are doing! Whether they are killing something or happily playing(which, in all honesty, can be the same thing!), they have the same poker face–I’m sure the EXTREMELY expressive American Bulldog face was one reason for that switch……