For the Birds

Those Galloways, as depicted by Walt Disney's elfin helpers, demonstrate conclusively that not every rural New England community is a Peyton Place. These Galloways are wholesome folks, and their struggles to provide a sanctuary for migratory geese make the high-flying fancies of Disney's Mary Poppins seem quite worldly, if not downright cynical.

Up in Vermont, Ma Calloway (Vera Miles) yearns for "a house with real snap-on lights." Pa (Brian Keith) and Son Bucky (Brandon deWilde) seem content with a cabin in the pines, where their pet bear can hibernate under the floor boards. The menfolk only want to raise $1,100 to buy a private lake where the geese can set down en route north or south, as the case may be. But a halfway house for geese is not a simple matter, not by a long shot.

It takes more than two hours for everything to work out perfectly. In the meantime, several geese are shot down, which means that some rich, heartless hunters have to be driven off. While Ed Wynn and Walter Brennan spew local color, Brandon deWilde survives hand-to-claw combat with a snarling wolverine, beats up the town bully, and finally notices that his childhood playmate (Linda Evans) seems different, somehow, now that she's 17. The bear exits and enters to signal the passing seasons. Fall or winter, though, Those Galloways' Vermont is effulgently photographed. Children of 10 or so will probably be delighted with it, unless they are off on some wild goose chase more challenging to young minds.

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