The Painted Hills (1951): watch the full film free, legally

The last MGM Lassie film

The Painted Hills is a 1951 Western drama produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and directed by Harold F. Kress. Also known as Lassie's Adventures in the Goldrush, it was the seventh and final Lassie film made by MGM. True Boardman adapted the screenplay from Alexander Hull's novel Shep of the Painted Hills.

Paul Kelly, Bruce Cowling and Ann Doran star alongside canine actor Pal, credited as Lassie. Pal plays Shep, a Rough Collie described as a descendant of Lassie. The story places Shep beside prospector Jonathan Harvey, whose long friendship with the family of his deceased partner, Martha Blake, includes her son Tommy. Nipo T. Strongheart was technical advisor and worked with the Miwok people on their role in the film.

Gold in California's hills

Jonathan has spent years digging in the California hills before finally finding gold. He intends to share the discovery with the Blakes, but his partner Lin Taylor is driven by greed. Taylor kills Jonathan and tries to claim the gold for himself, leaving Shep without his master.

The collie is poisoned and nearly dies. Tommy also faces danger from Taylor. After recovering, Shep follows the man into the mountains. The film's central conflict turns on the dog’s loyalty to Jonathan and the threat hanging over Tommy as the struggle moves away from the gold strike.

A score, a Los Angeles opening

Bruce Cowling suffered serious injuries in a fall while the production was on location. He had a hernia operation and had to withdraw from his next scheduled project, Across the Wide Missouri. Daniele Amfitheatrof composed the score for The Painted Hills.

In 2010, the complete scores for MGM's seven Lassie feature films made between 1943 and 1955 were issued in the 1,000-copy CD collection Lassie Come Home: The Canine Cinema Collection. The Painted Hills score appears on Disc 5 and runs 47 minutes and 37 seconds. Nearly half of the masters had been lost, so the scores were reconstructed and restored from the best available sources.

The film opened in Los Angeles on April 20, 1951, at the Loew's State and Grauman's Egyptian theaters, as the second feature to Soldiers Three. Edwin Schallert of the Los Angeles Times wrote that it “will compensate all those who have found Lassie one of the most interesting of screen acquisitions”. MGM records listed earnings of $783,000 in the United States and Canada and $302,000 elsewhere, producing a loss of $122,000. Its copyright lapsed after MGM did not file renewal applications in 1979. In 1993, it appeared in Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode #510, alongside the hygiene short Body Care and Grooming.

Film details from the Wikipedia article “The Painted Hills”. Text adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0.