Last of the Wild Horses (1948)

Fresh and Exciting

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Though the story is routine, I found Glasser's score to be beautiful in parts, and I truly liked its omnipresence. Added to fill 10 lines of text: I found Glasser's score to be beautiful in parts, and I truly liked its omnipresence. I found Glasser's score to be beautiful in parts, and I truly liked its omnipresence. I found Glasser's score to be beautiful in parts, and I truly liked its omnipresence. I found Glasser's score to be beautiful in parts, and I truly liked its omnipresence.I found Glasser's score to be beautiful in parts, and I truly liked its omnipresence.I found Glasser's score to be beautiful in parts, and I truly liked its omnipresence.I found Glasser's score to be beautiful in parts, and I truly liked its omnipresence.I found Glasser's score to be beautiful in parts, and I truly liked its omnipresence.I found Glasser's score to be beautiful in parts, and I truly liked its omnipresence.

This movie starts out weak and then gradually just sort of wanders off.It has potential, story-wise. A large rancher, Cooper, is pressured by his daughter and the other small ranchers to stop rounding up the wild horses in the area. His lead man has other plans and gets himself and the other Cooper employees deputized so they can frame the small ranchers and confiscate their horses. Cooper finds out about it and confronts his lead man, who kills him and frames Barnum, the "hero." Barnum is the weak link. He seems like the laziest, least intelligent, yet most charming guy in the area. He pushes people's buttons for fun and can't decide whether he's crooked or good. They all work hard and he just rides around seeming guilty of crimes or at least thinking about committing crimes. But chicks dig him. He mostly just appears here and there, acts cocky, irritates someone, and then rides off to rendezvous with a girl. And yet somehow you really just don't care what he does. You might doze off and wake to a scene that seems almost identical to the previous one.Whatever.

I saw this movie as a kid on TV, around 1951, and I thought It was a great western. It was done very well. The fight scene between Richard Arlen and Reed Hadely At the end was a memorable scene for me. It has been a long 55 years since I have seen this movie, so there Is a lot of the movie that I have forgotten, but what I can remember stuck with me all these years. There were a lot of great westerns made In the late forties and very early fifties. Some are out there and a lot are not The problem I have, Is that I have a hard time finding these movies on DVD to buy. If anyone has any information on this movie, I would appreciate It.

This might not have been a bad western if it could have figured out where it was going, what it was doing when it got there, and where they buried the plot under the prairie. The main character is a guy named Duke, who apparently decided that robbery wasn't paying(at least not the way he did it, anyway), and so took a job at a local ranch run by a really annoying old guy who fancies himself a learned medical man, his huge goofy sidekick who walks around in an apron a lot, and the old guy's clichéd tomboy granddaughter, who immediately takes a liking to the 'hero'. The main hinge on which the thin plot revolves is the fact that many of the local ranchers are rounding up wild horses to breed and tame, to the point where there might not be any wild ones left. The worst of the offenders is another old guy, this one in a wheelchair(probably because he let the other old guy treat him for something). His daughter also takes a shine to Duke, although I figure they were both bound to be disappointed, since Duke showed little interest in either and was probably gay.The wheelchair old guy makes a pact with the other ranchers not to round up any more wild horses for awhile, but the straight out of prison ranch foreman has other ideas. He intends to get himself deputized, along with his thugs, so he can kill and steal land with impunity. Since the only person who can stand against him is Duke, he stand a pretty good chance of succeeding. He even manages to frame Duke for murder, so that he has to flee town as a fugitive, hide out, and get shot by the wheelchair guy's daughter. As a hero, Duke is pretty ineffective.Actually, it's the medical old guy who figures out the scheme, using a conveniently dropped letter. There are several conveniently dropped bits of evidence, which is a cheap way to advance a plot. The bad guy shoots the old guy, but only manages to give him a scratch in spite of the fact that he was no more than fifty yards away and the old guy was going really, really slow because he was in the middle of a river. Okay, so he can't shoot. But he's pretty efficient about everything else, so we can forgive him that.Duke and the local sheriff(who finally grew a spine) arrest the evil foreman, and the movie peters out to its slow end. Nothing is really resolved, and the effeminate hero ignores both of the attractive and drooling women(probably in favor of the big, apron wearing sidekick). The horses were by far the best actors, which is fairly sad.