Wake Up, Aurora!

The Incredible Journey (1963)

I grew up watching 1993’s Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey and had no idea until now that it was actually a remake. But that movie, and the original, The Incredible Journey are pretty much the same plot: Three pets get lost in the wilderness and have to find their way home. The main difference between the two is that Homeward Bound includes character voiceovers, while this original has a documentary-style narration. For me, this made it not as gut-wrenchingly sad as the remake, but a tear jerker nevertheless. Animals with children = never not cute.

Thoughts:

If we really want to point out all the teeny weeny differences between this movie and the remake….all of the animals’ names are much weirder in this, the cat is male instead of female, the bulldog was originally a Bull Terrier, and the identity of old dog/young dog is reversed. Ok, I’m done now.
I barely felt like the movie established a good connection between the animals and the actual family that owned them. The man that was technically their petsitter felt more like their actual caregiver.