PlatinumRead Just so...so bad

Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

amiranda-39274 This movie has got to be one of the first movies i ever watched in my life, and it has affected me very much. This movie is so nostalgic to my family and i, that just the number 7, makes us think of this movie. Despite my love for this movie, i will give a fair review. The movie takes place in the 1800s, and it follows the lives of the sager family, as they intend to travel to Oregon, to find their own piece of heaven. The movie is narrated by Catherine , the oldest girl, who wrote a first-hand account of their journey , today it is regarded as one of the most authentic accounts of the American westward migration, despite this Catherine is not the main character and instead her older brother Jon is. The father is a strict but fair man, the mother is very caring but stern woman, the youngest son is hardworking, Catherine, the eldest daughter with a crippled leg acts like a mother to the 4 youngest daughters, especially the adorable baby girl, as for the eldest son, Jon sager, it seems that this movie does everything possible to make you dislike this kid from the very beginning, as he does pranks on his sisters, is seen being lazy and acts like a jerk, you know he deserves every spanking his dad gives him. But this character feels like a real kid and therefore feels relatable , and that's why his character development feels so good, when he becomes the leader of the children. Surprisingly for a family movie, both parents die, this is surprising because both characters are given a fair amount of characterization, and that's why it feels more sad when they both die, leaving 7 orphan children to travel to Oregon on their own. Despite everything being against them, the 7 children decide they want to get to Oregon and find the land their parents died trying to get to, with the only thing to remind them of their parents dream is a box with colored glass window pieces. The movie is mostly a drama, and requires the kids to say a lot of lines, surprisingly all the kids are pretty good actors, but sometimes the direction could have been better and there's just something about the way Jon sagers actor talks that makes him more irritating. All the supporting cast including the parents, do a great job, i especially like Kid Carson's actor. Despite there being little action, the drama can sometimes gets very intense, my personal favorite moments are when the wagon is attacked by Indians, the kids crossing the river, and when their all freezing in the snow. The music really turns up the drama to 11, it make every scene more compelling when the kids are talking, and horrifying when Jon finds their native American scout scalped, the mules death and when his sisters are collapsing in the snow ( i seriously thought one of his sisters was going to die!). But whats really great about this movie is the message, and there are several, first is the will to achieve the American dream and go after what you want, second is when a boy needs to throw away his childish ways and learn to become a proper man and take care of his family. The ending has got to be one of the most endearing movie endings that Ive ever seen, with all the children running toward the parents at their house in Oregon, which i have to assume is in heaven, with the heart-wrenching song " only a dream away" playing in the background. The pacing is good, the music is phenomenal and the story is timeless, safe to say this movie still holds up. This movie was my sisters and my favorite movie as kids because it showed us we could be more independent in trying to accomplish things, but it certainly made us grateful that we had both our parents to take care of us. if you haven't watched this movie, please go watch it.

whpratt1 Enjoyed this great 1974 family film, which was so down to earth about everything that happened to people living in the 1840's and their love of the Mid-West and the trip they were willing to take all the way to the Northwestern part of the country. This film starts out with a husband and wife who have six children and are struggling to scratch the surface of the land in Missouri and the husband grows weary of trying to settle in this part of the country. His main concern is going West like most of his neighbors. However, his wife simply does not like the idea at all. Once a decision is made, the story becomes very interesting and at times tragic; another baby is born, increasing the family to seven. This is a very down to earth depiction of how settlers traveled with their families and had great determination and faith in God to lead them to a better way of living in this great land of the United States.

inspectors71 Afte the explosion of sex and violence in movies, even more the twisted amorality of in the late 60's, there was a predictable backlash. By the early 70's, Hollywood had found a market for "nice" stories such as The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie, not to mention a bunch of other knock-offs that failed. This family-oriented counter-revolution extended to film, with Disney putting out lots of cheap, dumb-but-funny Kurt Russell movies and cheaper American International-like studios doing Grizzly-Frontier-Adams-Fremont in the Rockies productions. Some sucked pond water and some were even worse. Maybe the worst I've ever seen is Seven Alone, a story of a flock of 1840's era kiddies fighting their way along the Oregon Trail after their folks die (a blessing if human worth is based on acting ability). I grabbed this flick off the shelf at the local library, figuring it would be digestible cheese for my family to watch. Sure enough, my wife is enjoying it and my 9-year-old is loving it. Because I'm a pain-in-the-keister critic, I'm bleeding profusely from biting my tongue in order not to turn family movie night into Mystery Science Theatre 3000 with me playing all three parts of the audience. I try to be a good dad. This is so awful. I feel sorry for Dewey Martin and Aldo Ray, two accomplished and successful actors from the 40's through 60's. They must have been so very desperate for parts that they took the offer to do this hopelessly underfunded, underacted, and badly produced mess.And yet . . . There is some small bit of accuracy in this gunk. While another reviewer on this site had a small scale hissy over the movie being politically incorrect in its treatment of American Indians, I remind you that when a principal character refers to the natives as "dirty redskins," that's the least of the insults that were hurled at Indians by Caucasian settlers. They were hated and feared, and to our ancestors, the natives were a pestilence. Doesn't make it right or wrong, just accurate. My recommendation would be to skip this dull nonsense (even if the book it was based on was a good work of history) and stick with the tasty cheese put out by the Disney dairy. The most you'll get is gas. Seven Alone gave me a splitting headache.

MickeyTo Take a bad script, some lousy acting and throw in a politically incorrect morality tale and what do you get? Something that is supposed to pass for quality family viewing.Seven Alone is the story of a family in the 19th century who travel across America in a wagon train, hoping for a new life in Oregon. There are seven children (three boys, three girls and a baby whose sex I'm not quite sure of) hence the title of the film.The story opens up with the family living a seemingly normal 19th century life on a farm in the middle of nowhere. Eldest son John is a precocious teenager, 'lazy and good for nothing' as his father constantly reminds him. We see right off the bat that he has a penchant for practical jokes when he ties string to the hair of his sleeping sisters and connects it to a nearby mule. When the mule is moved of course the poor girls are jolted out of bed. John is caught by his father and is immediately punished with a strap.That same day a wagon train passes through. Pa is tempted to join up as it promises a new life in the wild, wild west. So the family hitches up their belongings and head off.From the very beginning the film seems weak and amateurish. The acting is below grade, as if from one of those films shown in school about the pioneers. I can't blame the actors, however, because the lines in this film are silly and just too sickeningly sweet and optimistic. I must tell you that I caught this film while flipping channels one boring Saturday afternoon on a Christian television station. Not of a religious mind myself, I watched in horror as Seven Alone offered up moral statements that were not only outdated, but downright offensive! If I were a good Christian I would hope that I would have had the good sense to complain to the television station for airing such trash. However, because I am a cynical, non-believer with a wicked sense of humor, I chose to sit back and laugh myself silly.In one of the opening scenes, the role of the father as the stern ruler of the house is established when he proposes the idea of heading off for Oregon to his wife. Her response is a heated "Over my dead body." We are expected to laugh, I suppose, as the film cuts to the next scene with Pa and Ma smiling as he steers the wagon along through the prairies. Oh I suppose even the most staunch feminist would have to admit that this 'Father-knows-best' attitude was the norm in those days, and one could argue the need for such dictatorial rule when living conditions were difficult, but I somehow got the feeling that this film supported that notion, even for today. Lovely message coming from a Christian television station.Anyway, things get worse for the family, and the films moral integrity is further diminished. An Indian (or Native American) robs John as he lay sleeping in a field. Like a common savage, the Indian takes Johns clothes and belongings. Thankfully Pa, with the help of passerby Kit Carson, is able to kill the Indian, as well as a couple of his delinquent friends. Kit Carson tells John that his father is a true hero.The family is accompanied by the wagon train's resident doctor, Dr. Dutch (played by Aldo Ray). He shares Pa's sentiments about John, stating that he is a useless brat. Perhaps so, but he also the best thing about this film. Aldo Ray's doctor is buffoon, who seems unable to tie his own shoes, let alone treat one of the girls for a broken leg. Thankfully the young child didn't cry when the wagon ran over and snapped her leg in two, because Dr. Dutch didn't seem to have the appropriate bedside manner. We know the drawbacks of constantly belittling a child. Here's a film that promotes that behavior.Later on Pa develops food poisoning, or something, I wasn't paying much attention, and he dies. His death bed scene is the stuff great acting is made of. Frankly, the man didn't even look sick.Soon after, Ma dies too. The children are left to fend for themselves. And that's when the real adventure begins. Slugging it through the rapids, encountering more Indians (these ones are nice though) and venturing through snowy terrain, these children do it all. And I was left thinking, "What a bunch of garbage!"Sorry, but there was nothing redeeming about this film. This low-budget Little House on the Prairie is a shameful waste of time and an insult to 'families' everywhere. I'm surprised that in 1975, at the tail end of the feminist movement, and at a time when treatment of Native Americans was coming into focus, that something like this could actually be made.