Friday, December 18, 2015

Movie review - "Wild Horse Mesa" (1947) **

I've seen a bunch of films with Tim Holt - the famous ones such as The Magnificent Ambersons and My Darling Clementine - but never caught one of his B Westerns until now. It's an impressive film - yes absolutely a stock story (investigating stolen horses) but came from a Zane Grey novel so it was strong, and gives an important role to a wild stallion, so that's a little different.

The production values are high, as is the cinematography. It was shot at Lone Pine Ranch, and there are decent action scenes including a horse stampede as well as a few brawls. Holt is a solid hero - decent, conservative, fresh faced, honest. He has nice by play with Richard Martin, who is his singing, womanising sidekick Chito - however Chito's role in this is quite small. Apparently Chito used to handle most of the romancing in Holt movies but Holt here flirts with Nan Leslie.

The plot is quite violent - an old man is shot to death, the head baddy is trampled to death by a horse.


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