Ride a Wild Pony (1975)

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Another Disney film about an animal? Let’s hope this one is entertaining at least. Read on for my review of the Don Chaffey-directed film, Ride a Wild Pony!

And remember, SPOILERS AHEAD!

The film takes place in Australia in the years between WWI and WWII. We’re introduced to a poor, young farm boy named Scott Pirie, played by Robert Bettles. He’s caught hanging around a herd of horses owned by the local rich family, the Ellisons, when he’s supposed to be at school.

Scott doesn’t attend school much because he lives a good number of miles away from it and he would have to walk. His father is threatening to sue the school for placing this unsurmountable obligation upon Scott, but his lawyer, Charles Quay, played by John Meillon, comes up with a solution. The Ellisons will sell one of their unbroken ponies to Scott’s family for a very cheap price and Scott will ride that pony to school.

This works out and Scott’s school attendance increases dramatically. He also finds a friend in the pony riding it everywhere and spending as much time as he can with it. One day, the pony goes missing and Scott tries to find it, but to no avail.

Meanwhile, the Ellisons have a young daughter, Josie, played by Eva Griffith, who used to ride horses quite a lot back in the day until contracting polio a couple of years prior. Since she’s now wheelchair-bound, she can only have a horse to pull her cart rather than ride it herself.

She chooses one of the ponies from her father’s herd to be her new cart pony and grows a liking to it. One day at the local fair, Scott sees Josie with her pony and recognizes it as his pony that went missing. Apparently, it found its way back to the Ellisons’ herd which is how Josie acquired him.

Josie and her father deny that this pony could possibly be Scott’s, while Scott is adamant that it is. This gets to be such a divisive topic amongst the townspeople that it ends up going to court to decide who has rightful ownership of the pony.

The kids and adults involved plead their case, but the court decides that the kids will sit at opposite ends of an outdoor corral while the pony is led inside. Then, they will both call the pony to come to their side. Whichever of the two it goes to will be the rightful owner of the pony. Both kids call with all their might to the pony, but in the end, it goes to Scott leaving Josie feeling incredibly crestfallen.

Scott is happy to get his pony back. Days after the court decision, the Ellisons pay a visit to the Piries and become friendly with them. Even Josie and Scott become friends. Scott even shares the pony with Josie allowing her to use it as her cart pony while she’s visiting.

And that was Ride a Wild Pony! Honestly, it was a very charming, albeit simplistic story! Thankfully, it really wasn’t focused on the horse’ rather the humans involved were the focal point.  I felt the acting by everyone was overall good, especially that of the kids. You could really tell that they were trying, especially Eva Griffith.

This honestly felt more like a TV film rather than a theatrical one, but I’m not complaining.

So, my final score for this film is 26/35 = 74.29% (C) !

The next review will be posted on September 24, 2024.