The Castaway Cowboy

1974
G
1h 31m

IMDb RATING

5.7/10

942

YOUR RATING

Comedy Family Western

A Texas cowboy is rescued at sea by a 12-year-old boy. While he waits to return home, he decides to help out his rescuer's family.A Texas cowboy is rescued at sea by a 12-year-old boy. While he waits to return home, he decides to help out his rescuer's family.A Texas cowboy is rescued at sea by a 12-year-old boy. While he waits to return home, he decides to help out his rescuer's family.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

5.7/10

942

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Trivia
Second and final of two collaborations of actress Vera Miles and actor James Garner. The pair also worked together the previous year on 1973's One Little Indian (1973) also a western and also at Disney.

Goofs
At the 1:07:21 mark one of the wild cattle has a brand - an x in a circle.

Quotes
Lincoln Costain: Where are you going, Batten?
Booton 'Little Maca' MacAvoy: Booton! Aw shucks, what's the use? I can't get the dang thing to work anyhow.
Lincoln Costain: In my outfit we only quit when it's too dark to work or time to eat. I didn't hear the dinner bell, did you?

User reviews12

Review

Featured review

6/10

The Castaway Cowboy

James Garner ("Costain") is washed up on the beach of an Hawaiian island where he is befriended by a widow "Henrietta" (Vera Miles) and her young son "Booton" (Eric Shea). They are struggling farmers, and so he sets his mind to try to help them out. All of this much to the chagrin of local bigwig "Bryson" (Robert Culp) who has designs on their cattle and on the good lady. The ensuing adventure is actually quite clunkily put together. It mixes mysticism, romance and avarice before an ending that though innovative, I found rather impractical and even a little cruel. It is still quite a fun family film to watch, though - perhaps some of the attitudes to and of the locals might not quite fit nowadays, but viewed in the spirit in which it was made 50 years ago, it is typical of the Disney-style of message mixing adventure and morality, and is just about worth 90 minutes of your time.