The adults get top billing but it's the spunky 12-year-old orphan Michael Little Bear, a boy raised by an aging priest in the southwestern town of San Carlos, who drives For the Love of Mike (1960), a heartwarming western for families. Michael is devoted to Father Walsh (Arthur Shields) and wants to see Father Walsh get his new church before he dies. Richard Basehart is Father Phelan, sent by the church to take over the parish in the impoverished desert community. When Michael spies a poster promising a $2000 purse at the county fair horse race, he's determined to train the horse he nursed back to health and win the prize for the church building fund. The two priests, the country doctor who watches over the crotchety old Father Walsh, and Tony Eagle (Armando Silvestre), who raises horses on the nearby reservation, all pitch in to help. Though set in the American southwest, the film was shot in Mexico, with Morelos standing in for the fictional desert town of San Carlos, "the ancient land of the Indian" as the voice-over narration describes it.

It's not the first screen appearance for young Danny Bravo, who plays Michael, but it's his first big screen role and the film gives him the kind of credit studios use to build up a rising star: "Introducing Danny Bravo." The child actor ultimately had a brief screen career, including a small role in the classic western The Magnificent Seven (1960) as a young villager who attaches himself to Charles Bronson's character, and as the voice of Hadji (another orphan) in the original Jonny Quest animated series.

Richard Basehart had played the Fool in Federico Fellini's La Strada (1954), Ishmael in John Huston's film of Moby Dick (1956), and one of The Brothers Karamazov (1958) in Richard Brooks' adaptation of the Dostoevsky novel before taking the more easy-going role of Father Phelan. Though never a major Hollywood star, Basehart was a respected actor who could be counted on to invest every role with depth, and he ultimately found popular success on the TV series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Irish actor Arthur Shields was part of John Ford's stock company, co-starring in such classics as How Green Was My Valley (1941) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) and--fitting for his casting here--memorable as a spirited priest in both Drums Along the Mohawk (1939) and The Quiet Man (1952).

And there's a special guest star too: Rex Allen, the last of the singing cowboys. The star of dozens of B-movie westerns of the 1950s and the narrator of numerous Disney wildlife documentaries in the 1960s, Allen plays himself as a retired performer who now raises horses and pits his own champion against Mike's horse in the big race. True to form, he even sings a song in the picture: "Charro Bravo," which he wrote himself.

It's produced and directed by George Sherman, an old hand at westerns. In the 1930s he was cranking out B-movie westerns for Republic pictures, including eight films that put John Wayne in the saddle as the lead cowboy hero of The Three Mesquiteers. He helped Wayne nurture his skills as a young leading man before John Ford made him a star with Stagecoach (1939) and Wayne repaid the favor years later. Sherman produced the John Wayne western The Comancheros (1961) and directed Wayne in Big Jake (1971).

Sources:
The Talented Richard Basehart (website). Stephanie Kellerman and the Basehart Family, 2000.
AFI Catalog of Feature Films
IMDb

By Sean Axmaker