The Red Pony Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

The Red Pony Blu-ray Movie Review

A boy and his horse.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman April 22, 2013

The name Roy Harris may not mean much to many of you who don’t have a lot of familiarity with 20th century American music, but Mr. Harris was one of the most respected composers of his era who unfortunately often found himself standing in the rather overwhelming shadow cast by Aaron Copland. Both men came along at about the same time and both sought to invest classical music with a more American “vocabulary”, but Copland’s immediate accessibility made him the critical darling while Harris’ sometimes thornier compositions weren’t quite as inviting. I had the distinct privilege of being invited to participate in a Master Class Harris gave late in his life with his brilliant pianist wife Katherine and it is with great chagrin that I confess I actually had the audacity to ask the great man about never quite seeming to be able to emerge from Copland’s all encompassing effulgent glow. Mr. Harris quite kindly and laconically responded with a brief, “Aaron wrote some great music”. Mr. Harris was no doubt attempting to be civil to an inelegant question being posed to him, but it also sums up both Harris’ humility as well as Copland’s lasting impact. It’s interesting that in the mid 20th century the two most respected American “classical” composers, Aaron Copland and Copland’s quasi-protégé Leonard Bernstein, made halting entrées into the world of film composing. If their scores were never quite traditional in, say, a Max Steiner or Alfred Newman way, they both wrote amazingly evocative music that contributed mightily to their films’ successes. The Red Pony is a charming piece of Americana which contains one of Copland’s most elegantly melodic scores, one which he reworked into a frequently performed concert suite. Perhaps surprisingly, especially given how popular that suite has been, entering the regular concert repertory around the world, Copland did not even receive an Academy Award nomination for The Red Pony, though he did end up taking an Oscar home that year for his perhaps more viscerally dramatic work on The Heiress.

The Red Pony was an unusual film for Republic Pictures to make, but the late forties saw the studio trying to escape its B-movie reputation with a series of more high falutin’ fare, of which this film is a perfect example. Not only did this feature a score by the man who was arguably then the most important figure in American music, it was based on a series of short stories by John Steinbeck, and Steinbeck himself wrote the screenplay. A-lister Robert Mitchum starred and if co-star Myrna Loy was at least a little past her box office expiration date, she still had huge name recognition. Helming the film was the legendary Lewis Milestone, a man whose career spanned the silent era to the 1962 version of Mutiny on the Bounty (and beyond), and whose legacy included two Academy Awards for Best Director, including the iconic All Quiet on the Western Front. Republic obviously splurged on this production, even eschewing their usual black and white ambience for some lustrous Technicolor lensed by Oscar winning cinematographer Tony Gaudio.

The story of The Red Pony is admittedly pretty slight, detailing the adventures of young boy Tom Tiflin (Peter Miles) on his family’s California ranch in an indeterminate time that seems to be in the late 19th century. Tom’s life is a series of chores on the ranch where he’s mentored by ranch hand Billy Buck (Robert Mitchum) whom Tom seems to take to more naturally than to his own father, Fred (Shepperd Strudwick). Fred’s wife and Tom’s mother Alice (Myrna Loy) looks on with a minimum of overt emotion as things unspool, the very model of a strong prairie woman. Tom is ultimately given a gift of a red colt by his father (in what is perhaps a blatant attempt to buy the boy’s affections), though the plan backfires somewhat when it’s Billy’s expertise that teaches the boy how to raise the little pony. A rather unexpected turn of events leads to some tragic developments which may remind some viewers of other “kids with animals” films like The Yearling (a film which is quite similar to The Red Pony in its general plot and demeanor) and Disney’s Old Yeller.

What distinguishes The Red Pony, aside from its literary and musical roots, is its unusual emotional ambience, one that’s rather tamped down until a really surprisingly violent explosion late in the film. There’s a truly disturbing scene involving little Tom, his beloved pony and some buzzards that certainly looks like it violated every conceivable ASPCA rule that later became the standard in the film industry. There’s a perhaps too facile conclusion after this unsettling episode that some viewers may feel is overly sanguine after the storm that has just passed.

The performances here are uniformly excellent. Mitchum, in an uncharacteristically “soft and gentle” role is superb, and Louis Calhern is a hoot as Tom’s grandfather, a guy who looks like Wild Bill Cody and has certain “story telling” tendencies that presage a much later Grandpa, the elder character in The Simpsons. While Loy doesn’t have a whole lot to do here, she is in some ways the emotional center of the film, a stolid woman who keeps the family together against formidable odds. But it’s little Peter Miles who owns this film, and he delivers a beautifully natural performance that is certainly one of the finest juvenile acting jobs of his era. Rather interestingly, Miles went on to a writing career and wrote the source novel that was adapted into one of Robert Altman’s early films (which Olive has also released on Blu-ray), the little seen thriller That Cold Day in the Park. Trivia lovers may also want to keep an eye out for some early work in the supporting cast by a very young Beau Bridges and (rather incredibly) Nino Tempo. Tempo, for those of you who don't recognize his name, had a remarkable and long-lived career as a musician, topping the charts and winning a Grammy in 1963 for his rendition of the chestnut "Deep Purple".

The Red Pony Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Red Pony is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.37:1. While the elements here are in generally good shape (only a few minor blemishes to report), the color isn't quite at true Technicolor levels, with a noticeably faded palette and just a light tip toward the brown side of things which gives the red in the film a kind of rust color (ironic, considering the title of the film). Other than these anomalies, however, things look rather good, with decently solid contrast and acceptably robust saturation. As with most Olive releases, there is no evidence of any digital tweaking whatsoever. The film is awash in opticals (including some "Walter Mitty, Jr." fantasy sequences), and those are expectedly quite a bit grainier than the bulk of the feature.

The Red Pony Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Red Pony features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix that is quite nice sounding given reasonable expectations. The track still has the slightly boxy sound that is redolent of this era's recording techniques, but there's no really overt damage to report, meaning Copland's lustrous score sounds pretty ravishing, all things considered. Dialogue is also cleanly presented. Some of the sound effects (especially in the opening "nature" montage) are mixed awfully loudly, but that's no doubt the way they are in the original stems.

The Red Pony Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on this Blu-ray disc.

The Red Pony Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Red Pony doesn't have the dramatic intensity of, say, Old Yeller or even The Yearling (the one film to which it's probably the most similar), but on its own quiet terms, it's quite an affecting piece. Steinbeck's screenplay is fairly episodic, obviously cobbled together from different stories, but the lush location photography, beautiful (if faded in this form) Technicolor and gorgeous score by Aaron Copland help to elevate this film above any perceived deficiencies. The performances are what really work in this film, with Mitchum and Loy excellent (if pretty understated), and Miles amazingly good. This Blu-ray offers very good video and audio and comes Recommended.