The Fighting Stallion (1950)

User Rating:

4.0/10   

Director:

Robert Emmett Tansey

Writers:

George F. Slavin (original story)
Frances Kavanaugh (screenplay)

Release Date:

23 March 1950 (USA)

Genre:

Western

Tagline:

Fight Fear... Fighting Fire... He's A Fighting Fury!

Plot:

Released from a navy hospital following WW II, Lon Evans learns that he faces eventual blindness and returns to his Wyoming ranch...

Plot Keywords:

Ranch | Blindness | Going Blind | Wyoming | Dude Ranch

Cast

Bill Edwards	...	Lon Evans
Doris Merrick	...	Jeanne Barton
Forrest Taylor	...	Martin Evans
Don C. Harvey	...	Commander Patrick (as Don Harvey)
Robert Carson	...	Tom Adams
Concha Ybarra	...	Nantee
Gene Alsace	...	Lem (as Rocky Camron)
Merrill McCormick	...	Yancy (as W. M. McCormick)
Johnny Carpenter	...	Chuck (as John Carpenter)
Maria Hart	...	Dude

Runtime:

63 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Cinecolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono | Mono (Academy Sound System)

Company:

Jack Schwarz Productions

Goofs:

Continuity: Don C. Harvey's character is listed on-screen as Commander Patrick, but sign outside his office gives his rank as Lt. Commander.

Quotes:

[first lines]
[after gloomily reading Lon's medical report]
Commander Patrick: Have him come in.

Horse Whisper: 50's style!

Rather interesting movie here that combines melodramatic weepie with a western. Bill Edwards stars as a soldier who gets out of the service to become a cowboy, only to learn that he slowly going blind! When he gets to the ranch, he comes across a wild horse that No one can break! But of course, he just walks up, and the horse is like putty in his hands. He decides that the horse will be, yes, his seeing eye-horse! Soon, he falls in love with a ex-nurse, who catches on that he's slowly going blind (she caught him riding his horse with a handkerchief over his eyes!) but he doesn't want pit from her. Will he see her again? There's a whole pile of other things, wild horses, the horse's mate and his kid, her former beaus, a forest fire that wander in and out, they're throwaway plot devices. They don't slow the story down, they're padding it, yet the movie doesn't really seem too long because of it. I really liked Bill Edwards in this role. Big strong man who faces up to the fact that he's human (and the fact he has Super Horse helps too).

This film is fine except for one glaring point. There's about 5 minutes of horse fighting in this. It looks like it was staged just for this film, and there's no WAY that the horses here could not have escaped any injuries from the fights seen here. No animal protection laws yet! Anything goes! Tsk.