Customer Reviews

The Brave One

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Brave One was beautifully crafted in 1957 by blacklisted author Robert Rich and immediately established itself as a superb classic. The tale is of a small Mexican boy and his enduring love for his courageous pet bull. Set in Mexico, a boy discovers a cow has been killed after delivering and orphaning a male offspring. Naming the calf Gitano, The boy becomes it's friend and caretaker. Realizing the boy's loneliness, the parents encourage the bond, but fail to emphasis the eventual fate of the animal. Throughout the Calf's life the boy's love inexorably grows unaware of his parent's financial responsibility to the bull's true owner. By the time the animal has grown to market size and becomes a cash commodity, the boy's parents are torn between their son's love and their duty to the Patrone. Using subterfuge, the parents separate the two. Returning from a fool's errand, the boy discovers his best friend and lifetime companion has been sold for the purpose of bull fighting and its eventual destruction. Despite the frantic warnings of his parents that it's too late to save the animal, the small boy adroitly played by Michel Rey, sets off to save his courageous friend from certain death. The boy visits everyone from the Patrone to the Governnor of Mexico in a vain attempt to alter the fate of his pet. The film culminates with the boy's magnificent bravery before an arena filled with spectators. True loyalty to any animal has never had a more poignant test of love and courage. For any viewer with a human heart, this tear-wrenching film will leave you joyfully weeping. ****

This is the best family-type film dealing with the sometimes controversial subject of bullfighting. The photography, score and story are all first class even though some parts seem dated from a 2006 perspective. Well worth having in your video library.

"The Brave One" is about a peasant boy who runs away to Mexico City to save his brave bull, Gitano... Irving Rapper directed the beautiful simple story of Leonardo and his attachment to his pet bull with understanding... It has an authentic look in the bullring, on ranches and in Mexican streets... It has humor, attachment, determination, bravery, suspense, and a terrific climax...

The highlights of the film are many as the weaning and branding of the bulls and how they are tested in the open fields; la Fiesta Brava filling resplendently in the gold and pink brocades of Mexico, mixing with the elegance of swirling capes; the father of Leonardo (Rodolfo Hoyos) trying to make Leonardo understand that the pet bull is born to die in the ring - the reason of his life -

With a tremendous score and an outstanding color photography of exceptional beauty, Jack Cardiff realized the most beautiful and expressive scenery of the Mexican landscapes... "The Brave One" had the flavor of the bullfight game and its devotees and hangers-on...

This is a beautiful movie of a little boy in Mexico, his pet bull and the adventures that bonds them both. This movie has a great sound track that compliments the scenery, the story and the people.

Being a life long audiophile and classical music lover, I was ready, at the age of 16, in 1957, to be deeply impressed when I saw "The Brave One" first run, in CinemaScope, with four channel magnetic sound, at the Norwest theater in Detroit. This King Brothers film, about a boy who falls in love with a bull, was billed as "The motion picture from the human heart for the human heart." The Dalton Trumbo story, combined with an awesome Victor Young score, and supported by a magnificent performance by Michel Ray with a fine supporting cast and direction, has stood the test of time. In spite of it's cost of a days pay at the time, I ran out and purchased the LP sound track album (Decca DL8344) because I was filled with mad lust to hear the music. I still have this album, and I have seen it listed for sale to collectors for $300. This should indicate the eloquent and vibrant quality of the music. Over the years I have purchased this film on VHS, LASERDISK, and now this wonderful DVD. In my opinion, this is the greatest movie ever made about the love of a small boy for an animal. I consider it to be virtually impossible to watch this film without ending up with tears in your eyes and a lump in your throat. I have screened it for many friends, some of whom are fans of this genre, and they all agree with me that the King Brothers gave us the King. This new DVD has outstanding image quality, and the best sound of all the versions that I have heard. The beautiful integration of music and title images sends chills down ones back right from the first foot of film, as the sound of the xylophone sparks the lightning bolts shooting out from the radio tower spelling out "RKO RADIO PICTURES." This wonderful old logo was designed and photographed by Linwood Dunn, the head of the RKO special effects department, whom I was fortunate enough to meet one day and discuss his work. No film shows off this wonderful logo as well as "The Brave One." Michel Ray quit acting and got a fine education in business. He went on to Wall Street and made millions. Eventually, he married the daughter of Freddy Heineken, the Dutch brewer. The happy couple are worth billions, and recently were major investors in the the new James Bond film "Casino Royale" starring Daniel Craig as James Bond.

Besides the good story.
The photography is excellent.With the Wide-Screen view and its clarity,the film makes it feel like you are right there at the arenas.The street scenes are actual shots of everyday traffic.See if you can quickly name some of those classic automobiles.
The acting is natural and the dialog is very good.It is a heart warming story of a young teen age boy and his pet bull.

This early Cinemascope classic deserves better. It is not 16:9, but letterboxed 4:3 with poor resolution and less than perfect color - it appears to be the old laserdisc transfer. It deserves better.

Words can scarcely express how great this all-ages movie is. I was unfamiliar with this film until coming across a video copy several years ago, and it is unfortunate that this film is so little known, even among cinemaphiles. This restored DVD, presented in Cinemascope, is the one to get (and I highly recommend that you do get it).

I will not repeat what has already been said by other reviewers, except to say that the film has everything going for it: an excellent cast (led by young Michel Ray), fine direction (by Irving Rapper), authentic Mexican locations, excellent widescreen color cinematography (by the great Jack Cardiff), a great story and Academy Award winning screenplay (by then-blacklisted Dalton Trumbo), and a beautiful Latin-flavored symphonic soundtrack (by Victor Young), which has to be one of the best ever film scores. (As an aside, I also recommend acquiring a copy of the original Decca soundtrack LP or the Japanese exact repro reissue LP, which are both available for sale on Amazon at the time of this posting {to my knowledge, there has never been a CD issue to date}. I cannot listen to this score without experiencing profound emotions, and the same thing goes for viewing the film.)

The stunning denouement of the picture, which I will not reveal here, ends with one of the most intensely moving lines in all of cinema. A timeless classic for all, and five stars all the way--don't miss it!!

A List of RKO films had given rave billed up new youngster Micheal Ray,all young stars of the day another great new star was born,a good story but abit to earley for young star.D.B.

"The Brave One" - 'A Touch of Greatness', so proclaims the movie
posters of that era, a statement that I fully agree with.

The movie was made on location in Mexico and released in 1956.
It was beautifully filmed in the harsh, clear, Mexican sun.

The movie introduces us to the likeable and talented young star
Michel Ray but in fact he had previously appeared in the 1954
British film "The Divided Heart".

Prolific composer Victor Young wrote the exciting music score
for this movie, his last before his untimely death in 1956.
He had composed the music for many other other movies including
"Shane" and "Around the World in 80 Days" for which he won an
Academy Award.

"The Brave One" won an Academy Award in 1956 for Best Screenplay
and the movie credits name Robert Rich as the writer of the
screenplay. As it turned out there was no such person as Robert
Rich, in fact Dalton Trumbo wrote the screenplay and Robert Rich
was an alias. Dalton Trumbo was living in Mexico after he had
left Hollywood following the communist purge in the 1950's.
He never appeared at the Academy Awards presentation and only
received his oscar many years after the event. He died shortly
thereafter.

The story is about a young peasant boy Leonardo (Michel Ray)
and his love and devotion to his pet bull Gitano (Gypsy) which
he raised from a calf. Being a fighting bull it is destined for
the bullring when it is four years old but Leonardo cannot
accept this as his pet's fate. The boy never gives up in his
desperate bid to save the bull but to no avail.

The bullfight scenes are harsh and cruel but in the end Gitano
survives by displaying unusual courage. The crowd who are
impressed by Gitano demand an 'undulto' (reprieve) for the
animal thus saving it from the ritual death in the bullring.

Here at last is "The Brave One" digitally restored to its
former glory and presented with a pristine transfer on the
VCI label. The picture quality is stunning and the sound for
the first time is robust and clear.

This important movie, restored to its original splendour,
is a special event in all stages of restoration including
sound (taken from a 4 track stereo cinemascope release print)
and cinemascope photography in handsome technicolor.

This is definitely a family movie full of warmth and
sensitivity and one to be enjoyed by all ages.

Great entertainment.