User Reviews

Young dreamer Peter Miles (as Tom Tiflin) receives "The Red Pony" as a gift from father Shepperd Strudwick (as Fred Tiflin). But, the boy receives help in training the animal not from his distant dad, but from ranch-land Robert Mitchum (as Billy Buck). When tragedy strikes, the lad learns some of life's lessons. The cast is certainly capable, especially with mother Myrna Loy (as Alice Tiflin) in the mix. But, the triad of adults does not approach the seething subtext present in "Shane" (1953). And, John Steinbeck's screenplay does not evoke the passion of similar films, like "The Yearling" (1947).

For these reasons, "The Red Pony" isn't as well-remembered. Still, it's an excellent production, with some fairly interesting character dynamics. Director Lewis Milestone and photographer Tony Gaudio contribute beautifully. This was the last film for Mr. Gaudio, who must have, although not finally nominated, received some "Academy Award" consideration for "Best Color Cinematography". Aaron Copland's musical score is also award-worthy. Louis Calhern (as grandfather) and Margaret Hamilton (as teacher) add support. Watch for Beau (son of Lloyd) Bridges and Nino Tempo (brother of April Stevens).

******* The Red Pony (3/28/49) Lewis Milestone ~ Peter Miles, Robert Mitchum, Myrna Loy

The most truly American of classical composers, Aaron Copland's stirring music score is what still resonates most in this almost forgotten 1949 film, even though it boasts an impressive pedigree - a screenplay by John Steinbeck based on his own collection of short stories, direction from film veteran Lewis Milestone ("All Quiet on the Western Front", Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men"), and A-list stars in Robert Mitchum and Myrna Loy. It was the most expensive picture ever made at Republic Studios, a poverty-row operation that was kept afloat thanks to a successful string of John Wayne westerns. On the surface, the movie seems like kid-friendly fare, but it also presents some interesting psychological subtext on the family unit and a surprisingly graphic scene that triggers the story's climax.

The story focuses on a young boy named Tom Tiflin, who lives with his parents on a ranch in the Salinas Valley. His no-nonsense mother Alice was raised in the area, but his emotionally indifferent father Fred comes from San Jose and has never felt at home despite spending years on the ranch. On a long-term visit to the ranch, Alice's father is an old coot who repeats the same stories about the old West much to the consternation of Fred. Moreover, Fred's constantly conflicted state has pushed Tom closer to devoted ranch hand Billy Buck. Family tensions give way to a red pony, Fred's present to Tom. Naturally, the boy focuses his full attention on the pony, even cutting class to take care of it after it ambled outside during a heavy rainstorm. The rest of the story plays the way one would expect from a parable about personal obligations and coping with tragedy. Milestone lends a painterly quality to the proceedings, but he doesn't delve deeply into the characters' motivations. This was probably an intentional decision since the picture seems designed to be more of a Disney-type live-action film. The superficial treatment, however, leaves some aspects of the story oddly unexplained.

The resulting lapse leaves the actors to fill in the blanks. Even in a sketchily written role like Billy, Mitchum exudes his famously coiled presence in the face of a character that seems too good to be true. Stripped of her sophisticated charms, a ghostly-looking Loy lends a stoic dignity to Alice that gives just a small glimpse into the marital struggles her character is obviously facing. A year away from playing his archetypal role of Oliver Wendell Holmes in "The Magnificent Yankee", Louis Calhern brings bluster and unexpected poignancy to the grandfather. As Fred, Steinbeck look-alike Shepperd Strudwick does the best he can in a relatively thankless role. Nine-year-old Peter Miles is generally affecting as Tom, though he can't seem to get past the boy's obsession into something more moving. That is indeed the Wicked Witch of the West, Margaret Hamilton, playing a minor role as Tom's perturbed schoolteacher. As noted with Loy's appearance, the color seems sadly faded in the print housed in the 2003 DVD, and unfortunately there are no extras offered - a true shame considering the talent involved.

There is an unusual abundance of talent associated with this film. The screenplay was written by one of the great American writers of the 20th century, John Steinbeck, taken from his excellent short novel of the same name. The score was written by Aaron Copland, perhaps the most noted composer in American history. The director, Lewis Milestone, made many fine pictures over a long career including Academy Award winner 'All Quiet on the Western Front.'

All that talent doesn't necessarily mean that 'The Red Pony' is going to be the greatest movie of all time, though it is a good one. Milestone's direction and Copland's score are both fine, but I didn't feel like Steinbeck's script was nearly as good as his book.

We often complain when a favorite work of literature is changed considerably by the movies, but what do you say when it's a Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning author doing it to his own work? Although I don't think this filmed version lives up to the novel, it still covers the same ground. It's about a boy growing up on a farm in Steinbeck's beloved Salinas Valley in California, where he learns some lessons about life. One of them is that the things you think you want the most sometimes come at a much higher price than you were prepared to pay. My favorite actor in this movie was Myrna Loy as the mother. Where did I ever get the idea that she wasn't supposed to be that good an actress? I must have had her mixed up with someone else.

This is a beautiful motion picture about a boy and a horse (and there are many of those). Adapted by John Steinbeck from the author's own short stories, it captures its rural setting perfectly, and the entire production is enlivened by strong characterizations. Louis Calhern is especially fun as Grandfather, and Margaret Hamilton shines as a stern schoolmarm. But the real star, aside from the titular animal, is the dialogue. The people in this story speak so realistically and naturally, it spoils you and makes you wish all films were written this way. An added bonus is Aaron Copland's music. Remade in 1973 as a television movie by Universal.

Sensitive and enjoyable film about a ranch boy who is gifted with a colt . The young Northern California boy cares his colt , enjoys , plays, until the little horse escapes , then things go wrong.

A family film with emotion , sensibility and good feeling . It manages to accomplish attractive scenes , though slow-moving and dull , at times . Actors are frankly suberb such as Robert Mitchum, Myrna Loy , Shepperd Strudwick , Margaret Hamilton as an angry teacher , the small boy Peter Miles , and special mention for Louis Calhern as the grandfather usually telling stories. It was remade for TV in 1976 directed by Robert Totten with Henry Fonda , Maureen O'Hara , Ben Johnson, Jack Elam.

It contains a really classy musical score by the great composer Aaron Copland . As well as colorful and brilliant cinematography by excellent cameraman Tony Gaudio, in perfect remastering. The motion picture was competenly directed by Lewis Milestone . This one was a vintage filmmaker who shot a lot of films in all kinds of genres with penchant for warlike genre , getting some masterpieces . As Lewis Milestone directed the following ones : " Mutiny on the Bounty" , "Oceans' 11", "Pork Chop Hill" , "Halls of Moctezuma" , "Arch of Triumph" , "The Strange Love of Martha Ivers" , "Of Mice and Men" , "The General died at Dawn", "The Front Page" , "All Quiet on the The Western Front" , "The Garden of Eden" .

Like John Garfield, Robert Mitchum is yet another one of my very favourite actors from that particular, by-gone era of moviedom history.

If you ask me, Mitchum was such an easy-to-like actor. Without any apparent pretentiousness, he casually projected just the right kind of masculinity (on-screen) which unanimously appealed to both men and women, alike.

So, with keeping that in mind - Is it any wonder that I found the best scenes in The Red Pony to clearly be the ones where Mitchum played a direct part in the action? I mean, without this dude's presence I probably wouldn't have enjoyed this film to the degree that I did and I most likely would've rated it somewhat lower, as well.

For the most part - I'd say that The Red Pony (which was beautifully filmed in lush Technicolor) was a film that would be best enjoyed by children. There really wasn't much of a tale in this sentimental, Hollywood Western to hold the rapt attention of an adult.

The Red Pony was an early novel of John Steinbeck dealing with memories of his childhood in the Salinas Valley in California. It was Republic's prestige film for 1949 away from the B westerns that were the company's bread and butter. Herbert J. Yates even had the good sense not to have wife Vera Hruba Ralston in it.

He probably spent half the studio budget signing as stars Myrna Loy who was free lancing and Robert Mitchum from RKO. In Mitchum's case it might have been a question of a favor or two owed to Howard Hughes. Both studios were B picture companies.

The story takes place like Steinbeck's other classic, East of Eden, during the years before American entry into World War I. The Tiflin family has recently moved on that ranch. For Myrna Loy it was a case of going back to her roots on both the screen and the film, in real life she grew up on a ranch in Montana. But her husband Sheppard Strudwick is a school teacher and a city kid and feels an outsider. Especially when their kid Peter Miles starts hanging around with ranch hand Robert Mitchum.

Anyway the lad is given a roan colored pony, a really good looking and smart animal as well. The pony and the boy take to each other and Miles follows Mitchum's instructions on care and feeding implicitly. He even teaches the pony some tricks one of which will innocently bring about the animal's ultimate demise and a Tiflin family crisis.

Though the Tiflins are quite a bit up the economic scale from the Baxters, The Red Pony is very similar in plot in a lot of respects to the Marjorie Keneston Rawlings classic, The Yearling. Both are nice family films in which the boy protagonists face crises involving their respective pets. They also have some disturbing scenes in them, young Peter Miles's scrape with some buzzards might give real little kids nightmares. I may have some myself tonight.

Still if you are willing to risk the bad dreams, The Red Pony is a fine family film that still holds up well after 59 years.

It is hard for me to believe this is a John Steinbeck novel and screen play, it is the complete opposite of anything that Steinbeck has ever written. Myrna Loy, (Alice Tiffin) plays a rather quite woman who lived in the Salinas Valley all her life and is a very calm mother with her son Tom and her aging father who repeats stories over and over again until I even got tired of hearing the grandfather, (Louis Calhern) repeat his lines over and over again. Alice Tiffin's husband came from San Jose, California and is beginning to drift away from the ranch and wants to work with his brother who lives in San Jose. Robert Mitchum, (Billy Buck) plays an outstanding role and seems to be the only person who puts his heart and soul into this picture. Louis Calhern gave a great supporting role and I just think that Myrna Loy did not belong in this film.

"The Red Pony" tells the story of a ranching family living near Salinas, California and the obsessive love of a boy for his pony. Within that story, certain dramas are being played out; a man unsure of himself and his ability, feeling a stranger in the place he lives, even within his own family; his wife, struggling to keep the family homestead going, unsure of her man's determination and grit; an old man whose time has passed him by, struggling to cope in a world he no longer fully comprehends; a boy coming of age, having to deal with nature's cruel injustice as well as the knowledge that adults are not infallible but also make mistakes.

Robert Mitchum is outstanding in the role of the ranch hand, Billy Buck, who seems to know everything there is to know about horses, thus earning the adoration of Tom, the ranch owner's son. Equally impressive is grandfather Louis Calhern, a former wagon train boss no longer needed for such kind of work. He is reduced to recycling stories that no one wishes to hear any longer. Myrna Loy, on the other hand, seems a bit too casual and matter of fact to be the challenged wife of an unsteady partner in the ranching business. She is much better suited to romantic comedy, playing such roles as Nora, the madcap wife in "The Thin Man" series. Peter Miles, who plays Tom, is satisfactory, but not as charismatic as some other child actors of the period.

The gifted American composer, Aaron Copland, does the music score, teaming successfully with the great American story teller, John Steinbeck, who wrote the screenplay based on his novel. "The Red Pony" may not be the best adaptation of Steinbeck to appear on the silver screen, on the order of "The Grapes of Wrath" or "East of Eden", but it is certainly worth watching, especially for the performances of Mitchum and Calhern, as well as for the music of Copland.

Two of the funniest men I ever saw were Bob and Ray. A comedy team that did some of the cleverest word play ever. An example. Bob would say, "You can see the Kimodo Dragon at the Washington Zoo. Ray would look at him and ask, "And if you wanted to see one of these interesting creatures, where might you and your family go." The delivery was slow and drawling. That's what this movie is like. It's a great story. It's about relationships and pain and isolation. It's about a father who just can't relate to his son. Then there's Billy Buck, played by Robert Mitchum. He speaks like this too. There are these pregnant pauses all over the place. You almost want to say, "Hurry up. We're not getting anywhere." The grandfather drones on about his adventures in the Western movement, driving the father crazy. The little boy has about as much charisma as a stump. I used to assign this story to ninth graders. They really like the book. The movie was so anti-climactic after the reading. They were so disappointed, it detracted from the enjoyment of the book. I'm not saying this is the worst movie ever. It could have been truly better with a little better direction and writing.

THE RED PONY is a beautifully photographed Technicolor film from Republic starring MYRNA LOY and ROBERT MITCHUM, accompanied by one of Aaron Copland's most distinctive background scores. It has wonderful credentials in that it's based on a series of John Steinbeck stories and is directed by Lewis Milestone.

For all that, the story of a farm boy's growing awareness of the cruelties of nature and the fallibility of men--even good men like Mitchum who can't always make the best of a bad situation--lacks any dramatic vigor it may have had if it wasn't directed in such a casual, slow-moving fashion and cluttered with small moments that detract from the main storyline.

Atmospherically, it's rich in farm detail, filmed on a real ranch and capturing the look of country life with effortless ease. Little PETER MILES plays the boy capably enough, but it's ROBERT MITCHUM as the ranch hand who feels he's failed the boy when the pony dies, who gives the truest, most believable performance in the film.

MYRNA LOY and SHEPPERD STRUDWICK are a bit too solemn as the rather remote parents and LOUIS CALHERN is allowed a little too many blustery moments as the grandfather living on his past exploits.

Summing up: It's the sort of film you wish could have been better, never quite living up to its rich potential.

Average family drama movie about a young boy, his new Pony and his family.Good drama and adequate acting is displayed here.The story is simple but quite entertaining for the whole family.A better script would have helped this movie.A must see for grade school children who love Horses or animals.Only for fans of this type of genre and big fans of Loy and Mitchum......

I'm not an expert on Myrna Loy but a 1940's drab housewife who's practically a slave to the men in her house isn't an image I would have expected. Perhaps she needed the money. Robert Mitchum too looks bored throughout and it's well known that he just thought of his time in movies as 'just a job' and I thought it showed here. There isn't much to do for any of them on a ranch that out of the way. Louis Calhern comes off best in the adaption of a unlikely John Steinbeck novel. I've read half a dozen of Steinbeck's books but wouldn't have chosen this one. It's too pedestrian for my taste and I only watched to see Mitchum who's good as always but looks tired almost. One of his poorest performances I thought. Peter Miles is the little boy who worships his red pony of the title but the pony gets sick and there are some drab moments where everyone is in the doldrums. Mum and Dad, played by Myrna Loy and Shepperd Strudwick are teetering on the brink of separation with dad wanting to go and live elsewhere and thinking of going on his own. Mum doesn't want to go and wants to stay on the ranch. Hired hand, Mitchum, seems a bit out of place, almost as if he's too big a personality for this environment. He knows everything about horses, so when the red pony of the story gets sick, he's on hand to try to save it's life. I was thinking all along that dad would leave and Loy and Mitchum would spark off together but not so. I was left disappointed. Grandad, played by the excellent Louis Calhern, steals the best scenes as a former wagon master who's put out to grass and loves to tell a tall story to anyone who'll listen. Of course, no one in the family does except the little boy. Directed by Lewis Milestone, a great director, the film is well directed and the colour photography is beautiful on the copy I watched but the overall pace of the movie was just too slow in 2021.

John Steinbeck adapted his own book for the screen, in what turned out to be Republic Pictures' costliest production up to that time. Daydreaming young farm boy in central California receives a pony of his own, but learns that taking care of an animal is a big responsibility even for grown-ups. If one is attuned to this kind of corny family drama (with a story-tellin' grandpa, a man and wife who can't keep their lips off each other, a cozy homestead with blue and white-checkered curtains in the windows, et al.), there are some pleasures to be had here. Robert Mitchum's slow-drawlin' ranch hand is nice to have around, and the cinematography by Tony Gaudio is very good. Still, this slice-of-rustic-life isn't particularly convincing. Shepperd Strudwick as the boy's father, who constantly calls his son "big britches," isn't as lively as the family's livestock, while Myrna Loy (her lipsticked mouth a pinched red rosebud on her milky-white complexion) looks curiously imperious while saying things like "Go finish your chores!" Loy is nothing if not professional, and she usually assimilates herself to any scenario, but why she was attracted to a role where she cooks and dusts all day and then stands at the sink washing dishes is anyone's guess. Lewis Milestone directed, and stages a strong opening with the animals waking up with the dawn--and an owl eyeing an innocent rabbit (perhaps the inspiration for Charles Laughton in his staging of a similar scene in "The Night of the Hunter"). ** from ****

Herbert J. Yates presents John Steinbeck's THE RED PONY (Feldman Productions/Milestone Productions/REPUBLIC PICTURES, 1949) Starring Myrna Loy, Robert Mitchum, Louis Calhern. Written by John Steinbeck, Directed by Lewis Milestone, Original Music by Aaron Copland.

REPUBLIC PICTURES, long the mainstay of the "B" Western, the Juvenile Comedy Series and (of course) the Saturday Matinée Serial, occasionally brought out through release a truly remarkable film. Case in point, we present you with The John Ford & Merion C. Cooper Argosy Production of THE QUIET MAN (1952). Films of such stature are rare anywhere and particularly so when produced (at least in part) by an outfit such as "The Thrill Factory". There were many others over the years; but as we said in the whole they were rare.

LIKEWISE we have the case of this John Steinbeck tale of family, generational gaps, hero worship, fraud and ultimate discovery of mutual humanity; with of all its virtues, frailties and foibles notwithstanding. The screen adaptation is a surprisingly successful blending of emotion all around the spectrum. Although we have a setting in the American West , in the early part of the 20th Century, well after the Frontier had been tamed; we find the story to be universally relevant and relative to all in any time, setting or situation.

FOR a project that is at least partially founded in a "poverty row", lesser tiered Hollywood Studio, the film marshals first rate talent from the best of that available. The Cast, featuring such luminaries as: Myrna Loy, Robert Mitchum and Louis Calhern, is equally well supported in the lower portions by fine performers with less well names. Shepherd Standwick, Margaret Hamilton, a young Nino Tempo and an even younger Beau Bridges (yeah, Lloyd's Son, Jeff's Bro). We're also treated to an uncredited appearance by Pro Wrestler, 'Wee Willie' Davis as a truck driver.

THE cinematography is beautiful and the open country natural settings are truly breath taking. Stark realism, as exemplified by the ranch buildings and corrals, barn, etc., receives an outstanding dose of contrast by the finely conceived and rendered dream sequences. One tends to magnify the intensity of the other. The inclusion of the Technicolor Process is used to the utmost level; making for the best and most natural palette on any screen.

LEST we forget our hearing, we must make mention of the beautiful original score composed by Mr. Aaron Copland. The theme and the incidental music, while sounding like vintage Copland, still manages to be a unique overall composition; deserving to be classified as a symphonic masterpiece, had it been written in another era.

IN the hands of veteran Director's Director, Mr. Lewis Milestone, the story manages to Classify itself as being virtually unclassifiable. You'll find no pigeon holing or square and round pegging here. What could well be called a Western, a Comedy, a Coming of Age Tale, a Family Story or a Juvenile Tale, could be and would be classified in any of these categories; ergo, it's in essence none of these.

AND that my dear Schultz, is what we believe to be the real criterion for true, singular classification and uniqueness. That's It and That's All, Story Over!

POODLE SCHNITZ!!