A young, impoverished 12-year-old boy named Jody Baxter (Wil Horneff), the lone surviving child of four, lives on a farm in 1870s Florida Everglades shortly after the American Civil War. Jody develops a lasting bond with an orphaned deer named Flag.
Reviewer Drew Voros of Variety wrote that "the absence of true grit and dirt-under-fingernails feeling weaken the believability of the drama," though "like the novel and the ’46 film version, death is taken very seriously, and life is not taken for granted. For this alone, despite the glitches, young viewers should be encouraged to watch."[1]