Adapted by True Boardman from Alexander Hull's novel Shep of the Painted Hills, the film stars Paul Kelly, Bruce Cowling, Ann Doran, and canine actor Pal (credited as "Lassie") in a story about a collie named Shep who seeks retribution after her master is murdered. Technical advisor Nipo T. Strongheart worked with the Miwok people for their role in the movie.[3]
The Painted Hills was the seventh, and final, MGM Lassie film released.[4]
Plot
A prospector named Jonathan Harvey (Paul Kelly), whose faithful companion is a rough collie and a descendant of Lassie named Shep, looks after the family of his late partner, Martha Blake (Ann Doran) and her son Tommy (Gary Gray). After years of digging in the hills of California (where the movie was shot), he finally strikes gold. However, before he can share it with the Blakes, his greedy partner Lin Taylor (Bruce Cowling) kills Jonathan and attempts to lay claim on the gold. He poisons Shep, who nearly dies, and nearly kills Tommy, but ultimately Shep recovers and leads Lin into the mountains, where he falls off a cliff to his death.
In 2010, Film Score Monthly released the complete scores of the seven Lassie feature films produced by MGM between 1943 and 1955, as well as Elmer Bernstein’s score for It's a Dog's Life (1955) in the CD collection Lassie Come Home: The Canine Cinema Collection, which was limited to 1,000 copies. Composed by Daniele Amfitheatrof, the score for The Painted Hills is contained on disc 5 with a running time of 47:37, and includes the following tracks:
Main Title / He's a Millionaire (2:43)
I Need Your Help / Christmas / Hairy Present / Shep's Longing (4:36)
Back to Jonathan / Montage (1:28)
Visitor / Pilot Pete (1:43)
Holy Pete / Good Girl / Foul Play / Shep Follows Jonathan (9:55)
Hat / He Won't Be Back (3:08)
Poison / Indians Find Shep (4:09)
Rescue (2:04)
Incantation / Shep Lives / Shep Came Back (3:37)
Tommy Finds the Grave / Taylor Pursues Tommy / Tommy Is Hurt / The Hole / Thy Heavenly Kingdom (4:55)
Come Along, Son / The Chase—Revised / Freezing Up / Taylor Dies / Happy Ending & End Title (8:59)
Due to the era when these scores were recorded, nearly half of the music masters had been lost, so the scores had to be reconstructed and restored from the best available sources, mainly the Music and Effects tracks as well as monaural ¼″ tapes.[5]
Release
According to MGM records, the film earned $783,000 in the U.S. and Canada, and $302,000 elsewhere, resulting in a loss of $122,000.[2]
Public domain status
Along with seven other MGM films released in the first half of 1951, the copyright on The Painted Hills lapsed after MGM neglected to file the necessary renewal applications in 1979. As such, the film is now part of the public domain, and has been released on VHS and DVD by a variety of companies.[6]
Mystery Science Theater 3000
The Painted Hills was featured in episode #510 of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K). The episode, which included a short about hygiene entitled "Body Care and Grooming", premiered on Comedy Central on September 26, 1993.[7] According to series writer Mary Jo Pehl, the character Pilot Pete was one of the favorites in the writers' room due to the "Pile on Pete" misinterpretation of his name.[8]
Paste writer Jim Vorel ranked the episode near the middle in his evaluation of MST3K's first twelve seasons, placing the episode at no. 101.[a] Vorel didn't care for The Painted Hills, which he said "tends to get under my skin and irritate me"; he calls the movie a "humdrum, overly wholesome film" with "washed-out colors." Vorel also said the short, which is "loaded with one side-splitting riff after another," is the highlight of the episode.[9]
The MST3K version of the film was included as part of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Volume XXXI: The Turkey Day Collection DVD set, which was released by Shout Factory on November 25, 2014.[10]
References
Notes
↑Ranking based on 197 episodes as of 2018.[update]
↑Pierce, David (June 2007). "Forgotten Faces: Why Some of Our Cinema Heritage Is Part of the Public Domain". Film History: An International Journal. 19 (2): 125–43. doi:10.2979/FIL.2007.19.2.125. ISSN0892-2160. OCLC15122313. S2CID191633078. Retrieved 2008-02-21. MGM was never known for its mystery films, but there has been a mystery as to why the studio's copyrights on eight features from the 1950/51 season fell into the public domain...Technicolor films include Mr. Imperium, a musical with Lana Turner and Ezio Pinza, The Painted Hills, the studio's final Lassie picture, and Vengeance Valley with Burt Lancaster and Robert Walker in a Cain and Abel story...These are mostly 'A' pictures, they were all in-house productions, they weren't sold to another studio, they had valid copyright notices, they were all released from January to June 1951, and MGM did file copyright renewal applications for them.
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