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The McGuffen of the movie is introduced when Natty’s father, Saul Gann (Ray Wise) is given a job in Washington state. With only an hour or so to get on the bus, he strikes a bargain with Connie, the proprietor of the rooming house where he and Natty were living, to look after Natty until he can send for her. Connie quickly goes back on her word in typical Disney fashion and becomes “Cruella De Vil” before the smoke clears from Saul’s bus. Once Natty escapes the rooming house (reminiscent of the Tanis map room and other prison breakouts) Natty hits the rails cross-country looking for her father. Miss Salenger is able to convey the emotions of trepidation and fear yet with subtle courage sells Natty’s determination of getting to her father.
As you could guess from the VHS or DVD cover-art, along the way Natty meets her traveling companions, the wolf and Harry. John Cusack's roll as Harry in this movie is just a bit frustrating. Granted, his roll is well acted and richly developed with depth from both the bitterness over the loss of his own father years earlier and the where-with-all on how to survive the harsh world of a drifter. The frustration comes from the misleading cover art and posters. The viewer would think that he's in almost every scene and carries the film with Miss Salenger. I wish that was the case. Harry is half of the nerve and guts of this movie but still doesn't have enough screen time to warrant second billing above Natty's father or even the wolf. Still, Cusack's Harry pretty much makes this film for Raider fans, keeping his fedora firmly in place with his small share of running, jumping and falling off of water towers. An enjoyable aspect of the movie that was the score, even though it did seem familiar. If the movie seemed recognizable to “Steven Spielberg Presents An American Tail” beyond the plot similarities, James Horner also wrote the music for Natty Gann using some of his signature themes mixed as well as a few original pieces. |
The shame of this movie lies with the fact that there is not Widescreen or Letterbox version that has been released on DVD yet. According to Amazon... the only version that is available is Pan and Scam. I would actually discourage anyone from buying the DVD for this, in fact. Disney has a nasty habit of not offering their customers what they ask for. Instead they seem to have the attitude that they'll tell the audience what they want. It's a shame, really that not enough people demand Widescreen... Pan and Scam doesn't do this movie justice. There are things happening off screen which would be nice to see while the edge of the screen does cut people right down the middle. Another shame of this Pan-and-Scam is how much of the beautiful vistas are cut off and cropped. The quality of the film in general varies from crystal clear landscapes to grainy night and interior shots. Regardless of it’s faults, it's a movie that sucks you in and continues to have the ability to do so after first viewing. Granted, it follows the Disney formula but it has the cuts and scrapes from playing too close to the razor’s edge. It's rough around the edges and yet isn't a movie that you would be embarrassed to see with your kids. If any thing, Natty Gann might be the only movie I've reviewed so far for this column that is suitable for all audiences, if you can just get past the Disney Stigma. |
Updated June 12th, 2009
Sometimes when I write a review of a movie, that's the end of it. There are those that I review because they are obscure and I want to introduce them to you for the first time, or give you a reason to watch them again. Once a review is done, I sometimes forget about the flick entirely, and the reviews I write for them are archived for future readers to find. Then there's "The Journey Of Natty Gann." There are just some movies that get under my skin and stick with me for a very long time. Coppertop Fisk (my eldest son) watched this movie every single day for a couple of months. Then would watch it once a month for years. He would periodically fall asleep and then wake up from his naps to this film. Many of the articles I wrote for The Indy Experience and the early days of The Fedora Chronicles were written with this movie playing in the back ground. For that reason alone, I miss that movie a lot. It was one of the last movies we bought on the old VHS format, and both the cassette and the Sony player have long since fallen apart and broken. [Check out my rant on this subject: "Have Movie Fans Come A long Way in 10 Years?"] I haven't replaced it yet. But I also miss the actual move; the plot, the scenery, the soundtrack and of course the interaction between the three main characters; Meredith Salenger's "Natty Gann" John Cusack's "Harry" and Ray Wise as Natty's father, "Sol Gann." Who am I kidding, I also miss Jed the Wolf. In the past 6 years since I wrote this review, there has been no Widescreen non "Pan-And-Scam" release of this on DVD. There's some hope that if this is ever released on Disney Blu-Ray that we'll get to see the non-cropped version of this for the first time in over 20 years. I would love to revisit this movie again, and might break my vow never to buy another "Pan And Scam" disk again. Maybe this one movie is worth it.
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Copyright © 2009 - The Fedora Chronicles |
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Back
when I wrote the review for Romancing the Stone, I mentioned there
were a glut of movies that were trying to cash in on the Raiders of
the Lost Ark success. I also mentioned that there were few that were
as memorable. The same still goes for this review, a movie that I
had forgotten and rediscovered by accident this past Thanksgiving.
Natty
Gann opens in depression era Chicago, not the Chicago of the
musical of the same name, nor the Chicago as portrayed in Brian De
Palma’s “The Untouchables”. These are the mean streets of Chicago,
gritty and dirty with folks suffering from the elements as they
wander the sidewalks... some are homeless and many are jobless.
Much as you would expect from a movie that might be aspiring to
be a Raiders knock-off there are some of the usual thrills you would
expect. There are many scenes when the heroine barely makes it
through her scrapes as she rides in rail-road cars, backs of trucks,
and hikes her way through the woods trying to find her way to
Seattle. She's an inspiration to younger girls who may think
seat-of-your-pants adventures are only for men and boys.
