A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

It appears I've never reviewed this series, so I'll chip in. Condensed version: All the many other reviewers and message board commentators are quite right when they say the shows with Jeff were far better than what came later.When I was a little kid, it was Timmy and Lassie. I think my family watched because my older sister was a huge fan of the Jeff episodes, and just kept watching, even though admitting it wasn't as good. As a kid I didn't like some elements, particularly that they seemed to want me to cry almost every week.When Lassie became paired with Corey the episodes really got dull and we quit watching. There was no family, no fun times, just work at saving the forest every week. No wonder Smoky Bear never got a series.Years later in reruns I got to see the episodes with Jeff. "WOW!" First of all, the characters were much more real--about as realistic as any TV family ever in the ways they interacted with each other. Jeff made mistakes, but wasn't in any way stupid. Ellen was usually doing all the right things in raising her son, but occasionally erred as well. Gramps was the funniest of the group, but was not a buffoon in any way.With Jeff, it was the story of a boy, who had a dog who he was seen training to do some tricks. They sometimes showed how he had to spend time training Lassie to do anything. Most of Lassie's heroics were running home to "Get Gramps" and bring him to wherever Jeff was. Totally believable.With Timmy, it was more like "Superdog" who understands hundreds of words and does all sorts of tricks, seemingly without any training at all. Nearly every week Lassie saved either Timmy or someone else from either death or serious injury. I think almost everyone who likes Timmy better, does so because that is the era they first saw. Even though I fit that description, I don't like Timmy years nearly as much. I think the difference between the Jeff years and the Timmy years is like the difference between a Corvette and a VW Bug. The Bug might have lots of good points, but it's not nearly the auto a Corvette is.I loved the comedy episodes, which were fairly frequent in the Jeff years. I remember Jeff phoning for help because "There's a lion in the yard." Another time Ellen's meeting with other women is disrupted by a seal Jeff put in the bathtub.Two of the most dramatic episodes that I remember that did make me cry: First the one where Jeff tries to shoot a fox and finds out he accidentally hit Lassie. He cried "I shot my Lassie." I just thought that was about the most horrible thing that could happen to a boy's dog, from the boy's perspective. The other episode came when Jeff, trying to help a blind soldier who had come home and whose parents didn't want him to know his collie had died, agreed to lend Lassie to this family for a couple of weeks, "just so it'll be easier" for the soldier. Somewhere along the way, with Jeff telling Lassie to stay with the other family, just got to me.The series was mostly drama, but with Jeff there were not so many life-threatening episodes. There were poachers of various kinds and thieves, but lots of the episodes dealt sick or wounded animals or the family being worried about the health of the other members. It was about a family that had a smart dog. The family was the center of the action, with the dog doing some nice tricks. It was rare for Lassie to do something so extraordinary you would think it hard to believe a dog could do that. I think the Timmy years saw "Superdog" nearly every week, which was the biggest flaw.I'd like to give a rating to the different eras.Jeff years 9Timmy years 5 Corey years 2 I never watched the later years.

I was not born when the Lassie series starting in 1954. The only episodes saw Lassie was from 1964 to 1968 when she was owned by the U.S. Forest Ranger Corey Stuart. I was sad when Corey Stuart was severely injure while fighting a forest fire and his character was taken out of the series. One of Lassie's episode was a guy dumping out all his garbage into a river and the guy with Lassie's help save a raccoon whose head was stuck in a tin can which was part of the man's garbage. The man look at the river and saw how he had despoil the river's beauty with his trash plus nearly causing an animal to die from it. He went back down the river to remove all the garbage. It show how we should protect, respect, and cherish nature and not treat it like a huge dumping ground for all our garbage. That is why we have agencies like Fish and Game and the Forest Service to protect the land from human misconduct.

I grew up on this show! It was THE ONLY show that we waited to watch, and never missed an episode of. THIS WAS AND IS QUALITY TV PROGRAMMING.When is someone going to realize the goldmine available in restoring and releasing this classic on DVD, ESPECIALLY the complete core years. Much of what has been released is poor-fair quality and UNRESTORED.Please, someone restore and release the original episodes of this show.This is the kind of show that teaches our children morality and compassion, something that is sorely missing in TV today.Let your children learn what quality TV is.Give your children an alternative to the current trend comprised of 'Urban Lifestyle' shows and let them learn what a real high quality of life and morality is so that they have an alternative to believing that 'Urban Life' is 'Quality Life'.Remember, most of the TV show creators and producers do not care what a show teaches your children, All They Care About Is Creating A Show That Makes Them Money. Money Is Their Driving Force, As Parents, The Quality Of Life For Your Children Should the Driving Force Behind Everything You Do For Your Children.

Of the variations of this series, the 6 seasons that featured June Lockhart, Hugh Reilly and Jon Provost seemed to hold the episodes that worked the best for me (the other variations of the series, while good, seemed to lack the small family environment that existed with the above), and, I must admit that "Lassie" is one of the reasons that I pursued a job in the field of meteorology in my adult years (and why to this day I still enjoy camping in National Parks or Forests) - as the Bible says, a good influence at a young age is very important, and I'm grateful that through television, the program "Lassie" was the good influence I needed. After watching some of these early episodes during the TVLand "Lassie" 50th Anniversary Marathon this past weekend (4/23-24/05), the program still remains in my mind as my all-time favorite television series during my grade school years.In watching these episodes over the weekend, what also came to mind was the "poor simplicity" of a child living in those post-World War II times - some might think that what is shown in "Lassie" was an exaggeration for television, but, in reality was mostly true - of our favorite "toys" at that time (I was born in the mid-1950's), our green garden hose was one of our favorites during the summer months (a very inexpensive way to "go to the beach"), along with our clothesline, which we used to "transport" our stuffed animals on "long journeys" far from our house (with the use of wooden clothespins - a stuffed rabbit had the ears for just this purpose) - try explaining that to a child today! People should also remember that this "poor simplicity" was also a reflection of the country's recent past at that time - while in today's world, 30 years ago means 1975, in 1960 30 years earlier meant 1930 - the height of the depression, and as older Americans know, it took the country many years to recover from those very poor and simple times, and could still be felt in some ways, even during the early 1960's.Florida2