This story about a horse named "Blue Murder" is pure melodrama, taking "Route 66" and writer Stirling Stilliphant into a whole new genre, that immediately had me thinking of director Russ Meyer, the prime force in creating softcore pornography in movies.
That's because guest star Suzanne Pleshette plays a sexpot right out of a Russ Meyer film, notably his greatest hit "Vixen", which made quite an impression on me back when I saw it at a Cleveland "art house" in 1968. She plays a woman dominated by thoughts of sex, as well as pipe dreams about getting out of the Montana boondocks and living it up in New York City (I managed just that same escape -from Cleveland- myself a decade or so later).
She's married to rancher Gene Evans, but also has a yen (more libido-driven than consciously desired) for his brothers Claude Akins and Harry Townes. Silliphant's script pulls a Hitchcock, copying the innovation a year earlier in "Psycho" of killing off the leading character early in the movie (Janet Leigh). In this case, Gene Evans gets "Special Guest Star" top billing in the opening credits, but is killed (offscreen) by the horse very soon after his entrance -quite a shock effect. The bloodlust to kill the horse (that Milner saved in the first place and carries around guilt for the rest of the show) takes over the entire cast and creates an almost mythic quest. Unfortunately, Silliphant's script tries to tie the story up way too neatly in the final reel, detracting from the overall impact.
This material is hardly the sort of stuff Arthur Hiller was associated with in his career, with such landmarks as "Love Story", "The In-Laws", "The Out-of-Towners", "Silver Streak" and "The Americanization of Emily". Meyer directed a classic in black & white in 1964, "Lorna", which captured the over-the-top emotions inherent in "Blue Murder", and it's a shame that his uncensored, independent approach couldn't have found its way into censored Television way back when, After all, the cable networks were soon to make hay with softcore pornography (and plenty of sex and swearing in their top "serious" hit series) by the 1980s and 1990s, when Russ's career was ebbing.