THE NIGHT OF THE GRIZZLY, enjoyable ‘family’ matinee item from 1966, a western with a favorite lead, reliable supporting players, pretty scenery, some laughs, a song, a couple of fights, a dance and yes, a whale of a bear with a bad attitude. Named ‘Satan’, no less. Homey, wholesome nostalgia item from a day before everything turned sour.

“Big” ‘Jim Cole’ (6’6″ Clint Walker) brings his family to their new homestead in the Wyoming countryside. Former lawman Jim aims to peaceably ranch with his wife, young boy, little girl, teenage niece and best friend. Trouble comes from three directions. First is a pushy local bigshot (Keenan Wynn, in everything during the 60’s) and his two rowdy sons (Ron Ely and Sammy Jackson), who Jim has to bat some sense into (cue a G-rated brawl). Second is a giant grizz that kills everything critter in its path out of pure ursine bloodlust. Third, adding to the bear burden is Jim’s old foe ‘Cass Dowdy’ (Leo Gordon) who means to settle a score and is about as mean on two legs as the fur fury is on four.

Walker, 39, a few years off his legendary (for We the Aged) 1955-62 run as TV’s Cheyenne, is a perfect fit for calm, deep-baritone’d hunk-handsome heroic husband & Pa. Martha Hyer is functionally bland as his wife (she worked a lot, someone tell me why), the kids are played by Kevin Brodie, 13, pretty Candy Moore, 18 (lotsa TV) and button-cute Victoria Paige Meyerink, 5, who gets a fair share of the funny bits. She has competition from veteran Nancy Kulp, 44, taking a break from 247 episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies, as a giddily love-struck storekeeper. Durable era menace Gordon, 42, provides the other fight scene, not done as gently.

Nancy Kulp, 1921-1991 veteran, actress, comedienne, writer, political candidate

The Warren Douglas script is simplistic but comforting in a lazy afternoon way, the telling helped by location ambiance, not Wyoming, but the oft-used California stand-in of Big Bear Valkey and Lake in the San Bernardino National Forest.  Manning the camera: Loyal Griggs and Harold Lipstein. Competent director Joseph Pevney (Away All Boats, Man Of a Thousand Faces, Torpedo Run) keeps it smooth over 102 minutes, with dependable pros in the supporting cast: Don Haggerty, Regis Toomey, Jack Elam, Ellen Corby and Med Flory (always liked him). The a’feared Satan is a mix of a trained animal (named Bozo) and a guy in a bear suit: it worked well enough at the time. Grosses toted up $2,500,000 81st place in ’66. *

* Bearing down in 1966–most of the year’s other westerns were considerably harsher: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, The Professionals, Nevada Smith, Stagecoach, Duel At Diablo, Ride Beyond Vengeance. The marauding Ursus arctos horribilis that Big Clint tangles with would hightail it for the high country when confronted with the snarling apparitions to come in Legends Of The Fall, The Edge, The Revenant and Backcountry.