Customer Rating: 
Summary: Night of the Grizzly
Comment: While the bear special effect definitely needed help it's a pretty fantastic movie for the whole family. Definitely one of those types of movies that you remember from your childhood and want desperately. It was definitely worth purchasing and my kids love it.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A Winner for Webelos!
Comment: Generally enjoyable and solid Western. Perhaps I would temper some of the high praise found in some posts below, especially bearing adult viewers in mind, but overall I liked it.
But the thought that kept running through my mind was that I would love to show it to a group of Cub Scouts, about Webelos' age (9-10). I don't mean that as any kind of putdown (my son is an Eagle Scout), I just felt that they would be the ideal audience for the film. Too much younger and it might scare them and cause nightmares; too much older and they'll start mocking the 'fakey bear'. By the way, speaking of special effects, I think it is almost impossible to portray a menacing animal convincingly in a movie (especially before computer-generated capabilities). Besides "Jaws", when has it ever been successfully done?
I did very much approve of the film's traditional values (another reason it would be great for Scouts to see). And even if I wouldn't consider it a prime example of the dramatic craft in its highest form, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it for fathers to watch with their young sons, especially those drawn to the great outdoors.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Renaissance Alpha Man
Comment: This movie remains my all time favorite western classic. I work with teen boys, teaching and training them in the traits and habits needed th be successful men. I use this film to help drive home my message. Clint Walker, as Big Jim Cole, epitimizes the essence of manhood. He exhibits honor, courage, compassion, integrity, strength, fidelity, respect, self reliance, love and mercy. As a family man he is the spiritual leader of his household. His wife, Angie, respects and adores him. He is unabashed in his love for her. His children love and look up to him. As a man he has the strength of character and courage to face an assortment of deadly challenges bent on destroyng him and his family. He engages his enemies with determined resolve, steady nerves and manly strength.
His adversaries include, a huge grizzly (satan) who is bent on devouring his live stock and his family, a wealthy and greedy land owner who wants his land; it was once his and he wants it back, and Cass Dowdy, a large, seething, menacing and steely-eyed man who has been nursing a deadly grudge against Cole; he wants him ruined, destroyed, humiliated or dead.
Jim Cole's deadly trials would almost ruin him financially (He could lose his ranch) and his marriage (How much can a wife take?). His best friend is killed by the grizzly and the wealthy land owner (keenan Wynn) does all he can to hasten Jim's departure from his land.
Alas, when Big Jim's wife can no longer bear the possibility that either satan or the evil Cass will do her husband in, she in desparation, fear and frustration, issues an ultimatum: Either Jim quit his quest to kill the bear and quit the ranch or she will pack up the kids and leave him. This brief and rare confrontation with his wife is followed by what I think is the best quotation of manly resolve I have ever heard:
"Angie, there ain't a man alive that doesn't got trouble. How he handles that trouble is what counts. In every man's life there's a Cass or a Satan, one kind or another, trying to whip him, beat him down, destroy him. He can't run away from it. He's got to stand strong and fight! What ever it is he's got to fight! That's how God made a man." Angie will soon apologize for her temporary loss of faith and stand staunchly by her man. Jim ultimately prevails against Cass, Satan and the greedy land owner and is able keep his ranch.
I think that our children, boys and girls, need to be exposed to films like this one. Jim Cole represents all the qualities of authentic manhood missing in our current society of effeminized and weak men. I am 55 years old and I watch this film at least 3 times a year and have been doing so sice this film came out in VHS. It is , for me, highly inspirational. I am waiting for it to be reproduced on DVD. If you have children, particularly sons, this film is a must see, again and again and again.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Family Classic
Comment: I grew up watching this movie with my dad. On Friday nights he would ask what movie I wanted to watch and I would always say "The Night of the Grizzly". There are a few scary scenes with the Grizzly but nothing to graphic. It's a story of a hardworking family getting through the rough times. A great movie for the entire family to enjoy.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A family tames the West
Comment: This atypical "family Western" tells a story that was probably more common on the frontier than every cinematic shootout ever filmed. Former lawman Big Jim Cole (Clint Walker, best known as TV's "Cheyenne") inherits his grandfather's small ranch and brings his family to settle on it. His first 24 hours in town aren't promising: he learns that the ranch was originally won from a powerful neighbor, Jed Curry (Keenan Wynn), who still covets it for his sons, Tad and Cal (Ron Ely, Sammy Jackson); he has to use almost all his savings to pay off a loan against it; 12-year-old son Charlie (Kevin Brodie) gets into a brawl with some local boys; five-year-old daughter Gypsy (Victoria Paige Meyerink) gets "skunked"; longtime deputy and friend Sam Potts (Don Haggerty) gets cheated out of $10 by the young Currys and their buddy Duke Squires (Med Flory); and the ranch turns out to be a near-ruin. But Jim is determined: this is good land, he says; with their purebred bull Duncan, he and his wife Angie (Martha Hyer) will raise "some good cattle and maybe ten or twelve more kids." Then comes full spring and the awakening of the neighborhood nemesis, a huge grizzly bear known as Old Satan ("If that beast ain't Lucifer himself he's sure his first cousin," says banker Cotton Benson (Regis Toomey), an early friend of the Coles). Satan's first visit to the Cole ranch results in a dead bull, the panicked flight of Sam's beloved mule Becky, and the injury of the family dog Solomon. Jim and Sam go hunting and manage to hurt and intimidate the animal, but as fall arrives he returns and wreaks even more havoc, not only against them but at other places in the valley. Now the cattlemen put a bounty on the bear, which draws hunter Cass Dowdy (Leo Gordon), formerly a deputy of Jim's, who bears him an old grudge and yearns to see him "busted, flat broke, and beat."Much of the charm of the movie is in the picture of a close-knit family making a home for itself in a new land, and in the well-drawn, well-acted characters, including Hank (Jack Elam), the town loafer, Wilhelmina "Bill" Peterson (Nancy Kulp of "The Beverly Hillbillies"), who keeps the general store, and Hazel Squires (Ellen Corby), Duke's tiny, feisty mother. It's true that the "bear" in several of the close-ups is obviously a man in a bear suit, but there are also some impressive shots of a genuine grizzly, as well as some gorgeous trans-Divide Wyoming scenery and a generous helping of humor. While there's little man-vs.-man shooting (I won't say none), three fistfights provide some action, and the steadily rising tension between Jim and Angie as the stress tests their marriage, the threat of losing the ranch, and the looming menace of Dowdy keep the suspense going. This would be an excellent movie for "family night" viewing; it's been one of my favorites for over three decades.
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