"Against a Crooked Sky" is a film that's been allowed to slip into the public domain (hence its being available for free download from archive.org)...and after seeing it, I can understand why the copyright holder wouldn't bother renewing the film rights. Still, despite me thinking that it's a terrible film, apparently some really liked it based on the IMDb reviews.

The film begins with a group of 'Indians' attacking a home and running off with a young lady while her teenage brother helplessly watches. The boy blames himself and inadvisably runs off to look for her and soon almost dies but is saved thanks to a character named 'Russian' (Richard Boone). As for Russian, he's pretty much Yukon Cornelius from the Rankin-Bass stop-motion special, "Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer"! In a severe case of overacting, Boone acts like a children's cartoon character.

Ultimately the pair end up going through all sorts of troubles (little of which seems plausible) until they catch up to this bizarro tribe where half the folks look nothing like Native Americans. And, the conclusion to all this just seemed like a lot of nonsense...even less convincing than William Shatner as he starred in "White Comanche"!

I cannot think of anything good to say about this one other than you get to see the Grand Canyon (which is pretty). Oh, and you get to see a puppy at the very end. Otherwise, the film seems childish and silly...at best.

Against A Crooked Sky tells the story of a young boy's efforts to save his sister who has been kidnapped by a mysterious Indian tribe that no one seems to have heard of. From the look of them they seem to be surviving Aztecs although the film never specifically says so.

Young Stewart Petersen sees his sister Jewel Branch kidnapped by this group of Indians who in the intervening years since Cortes have learned to ride horses. Although his parents certainly disapprove because they don't want to lose their surviving child either, Petersen goes on a mission to rescue Branch. Along the way he picks up a cantankerous old trapper who likes to pop a jug cork every now and then played by Richard Boone. Of course Boone just steals the film.

Boone and Petersen also pick up Henry Wilcoxon an old Indian who was living with the Cheyenne and who is known as Cut Tongue because his was cut out lest he reveal secrets of the lost tribe of which he was one. He guides them to their location where Petersen has to pass a warrior ritual to save his sister's life though it may cost him his own.

Against A Crooked Sky is a nice family film, small and unpretentious but filled with good values. The location shooting in Arizona and Utah is really superb. Petersen is an earnest and winning young performer and Boone just chews the scenery to beat the band, but that's his kind of character.

The film holds up well and I recommend it for family audiences.

Veteran actor Richard Boone is top billed and overacts as a drunken prospector who aides teenager Stewart Petersen who is searching for his sister Jewel Blanch, kidnapped by a band of rogue natives whom nobody, even other native tribes, can't identify. Playing your typical overly boisterous grizzled western character, Boone is meant to come off as lovable but instead comes off as tedious and someone who never shuts up. There's a more dignified silent ancient Native who has had his tongue cut out and yet has more wisdom and spirituality than Boone's character could ever hope to muster.

What you don't get from the predictable story with religious twists you do get as far as scenery and gorgeous vistas are concerned. This is one of those mid-70's family adventures, usually made for matinee audiences or seen in family oriented drive-ins, low budget inn and easy to make a quick profit, yet quickly forgettable. There are fights in Apache territory (they are always the bad guys in films like this, constantly portrayed as savages),and yet there's always little to explain what motivated that savageness, at least what is seen in the movie.

Shannon Farnon and Clint Ritchie ("One Life to Live's" original Clint Buchanan) are wasted as the parents, pretty much uninvolved in the rescue of their missing daughter. The mark on the ground that Peterson finds suspiciously looks like a Nazi swastika, and this was set long before the rise of the third reich. The acting is barely passable, and Peterson reads his lines as if he's looking right at the script. I'm surprised that this is actually survived its limited theatrical showing to make it on to home video, with a few poor "theme songs" and inappropriate melodramatic music not right to aid in the film's moods.