Michael Craig
James Ellison
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Adventure
Scott, a poor farm boy, is given a wild pony from a wealthy ranch owner's herd to ride to and from school. Scott and his pony soon become an inseparable team, until one day the pony suddenly disappears. Soon after, the ranch owner's handicapped daughter Josie has a wild pony especially trained to pull her cart. But Scott is convinced that Josie's pony is actually his, which leads to a court battle that divides their small Australian town. One child must ultimately lose the pony when true ownership is decided.
Top Billed Cast
| Release Date | 1975-11-02 |
|---|---|
| Runtime | 1h 26m |
| Directors | Don Chaffey, Jack Cardiff |
| Producer | |
| Writer |
A film that doesn't have a likeable character...
The premise of 'Ride a Wild Pony' is way overdone, it feels overly elaborate just so they could include a court case scene. None of the characters even come across as all that charming. From a certain point, you can easily predict the conclusion despite it just emphasising how over complicated it all is.
The two leads of the film are child actors in Robert Bettles (Scott) and Eva Griffith (Josie), who were seemingly told to act in full-on uncompromising mode; so no hate on the actors themselves. With that said, Scott acts like a spoilt brat for large portions while Josie expects everything her own way.
I'd be fine with that if that was the film's intentions, but I'm positive it expects us to like and/or sympathise with them completely. I can't say I did. None of the adult onscreen talent standout, which doesn't help the youngsters. As for any positives, I haven't got much for you. The fact that it's shot on location in Australia is nice I guess, but that's practically it.
This is, unfortunately, yet another mediocre live-action release from 1970s Disney.
— r96sk