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The Painted Hills
The Painted Hills
	Original theatrical poster
Directed by	Harold F. Kress
Screenplay by	True Boardman
Based on	Shep of the Painted Hills; 1930 novel; by Alexander Hull
Produced by	Kenneth Bennett; Chester M. Franklin
Starring	Pal (credited as "Lassie"); Paul Kelly; Bruce Cowling; Gary Gray
Cinematography	Alfred Gilks; Harold Lipstein
Edited by	Newell P. Kimlin
Music by	Daniele Amfitheatrof
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date	April 26, 1951;
Running time	68 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$667,000
Box office	$1,085,000

The Painted Hills, also known as Lassie's Adventures in the Goldrush, is a 1951 drama western film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and directed by Harold F. Kress.

Adapted by True Boardman from Alexander Hull's novel Shep of the Painted Hills, the film stars Paul Kelly, Bruce Cowling, Ann Doran, and dog actor Pal (credited as "Lassie") in a story about a collie named Shep who seeks revenge after her master is murdered. Technical advisor Nipo T. Strongheart for Native American topics 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.

Cast

Pal (credited as "Lassie") as Shep - Hero
Paul Kelly as Jonathan Harvey - Good Oldtime Prospector
Bruce Cowling as Lin Taylor - Gold Fever Bad Partner
Gary Gray as Tommy Blake - Boy
Ann Doran as Martha Blake - Tommy's Mom
Art Smith as Pilot Pete - Parson
Andrea Virginia Lester as Mita
Chief Yowlachie as Bald Eagle - Indian Vet
Brown Jug Reynolds as Red Wing

Music

In 2010, Film Score Monthly released the complete scores of the seven Lassie feature films released 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, limited to 1000 copies.[1] Due to the era when these scores were recorded, nearly half of the music masters have 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]

The score for The Painted Hills was composed by Daniele Amfitheatrof.

Track listing for The Painted Hills (Disc 5)

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

Total Time: 47:37

Release

According to MGM records, the film earned $783,000 in the US and Canada and $302,000 elsewhere, leading to a loss of $122,000.^[2]

Public domain status

Along with seven other MGM films released 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 to VHS and DVD by a variety of companies.^[6]

In popular culture

The movie was riffed on Mystery Science Theater 3000 (episode 510)^[7]

References

^ imdb.com
^ ^a ^b ^c The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
^ Strongheart, Nipo T. (Autumn 1954). "History in Hollywood". The Wisconsin Magazine of History. 38 (1): 10–16, 41–46. JSTOR 4632754.
^ Collins, Ace. Lassie: a Dog's Life. Penguin Books, 1993.
^ "Lassie Come Home: The Canine Cinema Collection (1943-1955)". Film Score Monthly. Retrieved November 21, 2019.
^ 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. ISSN 0892-2160. OCLC 15122313. S2CID 191633078. 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.
^ List of Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes