Training a Group of Fawns

Animal trainer Morgan's greatest pride and joy among his four-legged actors was the fawn Bambi. Referred to by Clarence Brown as the "Million-Dollar-Baby", Bambi is the star of the hit movie The Yearling. All other deer and fawns appearing in the movie were raised in zoos. Rescued from a forest fire by a ten-year-old girl, who was persuaded to part with it only on a promise of a female fawn to be supplied from Morgan's stock. Bambi, the sole truly wild member of the M.G.M. deer family, was the only really tame one. When I first saw Bambi, he was strutting up to Morgan for his bottle, tail wagging, head set on his graceful neck as if he were showing it off, inquisitive nose thrust out, and a look of intelligence in his round, starry eyes.

Morgan reached over and picked him up. The calf-like legs, which stuck out awkwardly on other fawns when they were lifted from the ground, folded neatly underneath this young deer. Nearly all special tricks and close-ups were reserved for Bambi's talents. He was used for all shots where Jody is shown carrying Flag, and he was the only deer that would come when he was called. "You see," Morgan said, nodding at Bambi folded quietly in his arms, head raised, listening to Morgan as if he were a prophet, "Bambi's the right color and the right everything. He's just a natural deer."

Maintaining a group of fawns individually trained to perform a definite set of actions was not the only problem, however. Often a part of the script called for something not a part of the regular repertoire. Movie scenes are shot backward and forward, and animal experts have to have as many tricks up their sleeves as any studio prop man. Before shooting began on the funeral scene of Jody's friend, Fodderwing, trainers were informed that Brown wanted a shot of Flag riding in the funeral wagon. Riding along on a sand-rutted road with harness jangling is enough to startle any fawn.

But trainers followed the same realistic method characteristic of the whole production. They rigged and hitched up a wagon and drove Bonita, the Flag for the day, up and down half the night, until a wagon became as much a part of her life as the cot she slept on. Fawns did not always steal animal scenes in The Yearling, however. Dogs are responsible for some of the best character acting in the picture. In the bear hunt sequence The Feist, a dog belonging to Jody's father, Penny Baxter, jumps bravely through the thicket after the bear, recoils and backs up, cringing, toward his master. The dog playing the part of The Feist was naturally aggressive. The problem of making him into a coward was a tough one.