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I first started going to camp when I was 5 years archaic, impartial a year after this film was released, but I didn’t behold it until a few years later, when it was on TV. The first camp I went to was a co-ed camp. Kids ranged from 5 to 18 and were sometimes in a camp-wide group, but more often than not, age groups and genders were separated. As a group of hyper 5-year-old girls, we were taught some cheesy crafts, we went fishing, a limited archery and “snipe” hunting. The purpose of snipe (an imaginary creature) hunting was to supposedly occupy a live (never before seen) specimen.

One night we were told the entire camp was going to go on an Armadillo hunt. I was very exasperated… I had only seen armadillos on TV and I really wanted to be able to pet one (and sneak it home in my luggage if I could!) . Minute did I realize that some of the older boys had intended on really hunting one of these harmless creatures… legal when I saw one, I got to glimpse it blown to bits with a shot gun. There are moments like that that you never forget… a split second where one cramped allotment of you that was unexcited a child, dies and turns into an adult… all in the twinkling of an glimpse.

I related to this movie in a million ways. I was one of those kids that no one noticed and if I had gone missing, no one would have remembered I was ever there until my parents showed up and asked for me. I was accustomed to being picked on at school, so I avoided interaction w/ the other kids and always did what I was told by adults… many of whom had no business being in charge of children.

The movie is humdrum in many places, but it exacerbates the feeling of lonliness and rejection felt by the group of outcasts in this film. I was in terror when I saw them stand up for what they believed in, rejecting authority and doing everything they could to attach what could have very well been the last herd of buffalo on earth. They finally say, “no more! We’re tired of crying, and now we’re going to fight!”

A few humorous moments, but those are there to demolish the tension… many poignant moments, boys confiding in their friends their deepest fears and longings… and there are the senseless tragic moments.

Even as a child, I was keenly aware from watching the news how endangered buffalo were at the time. While they’re so well-liked today as to be served up as alternative beef, when this movie was released there were less than 2,000 living specimens. This film must have certainly inspired a more alive to distress to increase their numbers.

Excellent performances by Billy Mumy, Barry Robins, Miles Chapin and others… not to mention the title song performed by The Carpenters. While I saw this film as a child and I survived the experience, I don’t recommend this film for young children. The violence perpetrated against the animals in the film will be extremely upsetting to anyone, but especially to limited kids… and some young children may earn the film to be too dull to pay attention to at length.

If you haven’t seen this film, it is a classic and abounding with spacious talent in these wise-beyond-their-years characters.

I first saw this film at my high school encourage in 1978, when I was 14 years-old and in the 9th grade. My English class read the book some 2 months earlier, so I was ready for a different prospective on the epic. Boy, did I score a treat!! Yes, there were some rather lame scenes, like the “Chamber Pot Baptism” and when the Bedwetters protested the killing of the buffalo on the grounds of the maintain, but I attribute that to “Awful Writing”, not “Awful Acting”. In fact, I reflect they couldn’t have found a better cast for the six main characters. If someone was to ask me who Teft is, for example, the only logical acknowledge would be none other than Bill Mumy, etc. My point is the movie would have worked better if Stanley Kramer stuck closer to the book than changing too many situations. I would have loved to seen Teft’s airplane hyjinks or the Lally Brothers’ letting all of the dogs out of the flee ship’s kennels. But despite this film’s shortcomings (including some poor editing–chalk marks on the road in the “horse-breather” scene), this film did have a lasting impact on me and it is composed one of my all time accepted movies. One of these days, I wouldn’t mind talking to the surviving leading actors and study what their opinions are on acting in this particular film; I bet you that will be quite an inspirational exprience!!

More than twenty-eight years after its release, this poignant and exquisitely affecting film based on the Glendon Swarthout new collected resonates deeply with this 41-year-old film buff. I first saw the film in January 1972 as a gawky, hideously terrifying 13-year-old who was taller than everyone else at Kennedy Junior High in Hays, Kansas and who faced constant cruelty and teasing - simply for being “different.” Thus, I related to the “Bedwetters” as I was convinced no one else could have. The boys’ camp counselor, portrayed with menacing conviction by Ken Swofford, was familiar to me as well. There was a “Wheaties” in every schoolhouse, townhouse and outhouse of my young life. Moreover, I was and have always been an avowed animal lover, and the young men’s efforts to set aside a herd of buffalo from extinction touched my heart and stirred my soul. The helpful cast is principal for the presence of then-17-year-old Bill Mumy, four years removed from his starring role as tiny Will Robinson on TV’s “Lost in Residence.” As the brooding, taciturn Lawrence Teft III, Mumy brings a sauntering, sexy charisma to his performance - light years away from the apple-cheeked cherub of the 1960’s. This haunting and instructive film leaves us with disturbing lessons about the mark enacted by pervasive rejection and negativity - and the redemptive power of unity and compassion.