Lights! Camera! Gallop!

Home , The Legend of Zorro, The Lone Ranger (serial), The Mask of Zorro, Tornado (horse), Trigger (horse), Zorro (novel)

The story of the horse in film

By by Lesley Lodge

Published by Cooper Johnson Limited

ISBN: 978-0-9573310-1-3

Cover photo: Running pairs Copyright Paul Homsy Photography Taken in Ruby Valley in northern Nevada, USA. Shadowfax – a horse ‘so clever and obedient he doesn’t have a bridle or a bit or reins or a saddle’ (Lord of the Rings trilogy) Ah, if only it was all that simple . . . Contents

Chapter One: Introducing... horses in film Chapter Two: How the horse became a film star Chapter Three: The casting couch: which horse for which part? Chapter Four: The stars – and their glamour secrets Chapter Five: Born free: wild horses and the wild horse film Chapter Six: Living free: wild horse films around the world Chapter Seven: Comedy: horses that make you laugh Chapter Eight: Special effects: a little help for horses Chapter Nine: Tricks and stunts: how did he do that? Chapter Ten: When things go wrong: spotting fakes and mistakes Chapter Eleven: Not just a horse with no name: the Western Chapter Twelve: Test your knowledge now Quotes: From the sublime to the ridiculous Bibliography List of films mentioned in the book Useful websites: find film clips – and more – for free Acknowledgements Photo credits Glossary About the author Chapter One Introducing….horses in film

The concept of a horse as a celebrity is easy enough to accept – because, after all, few celebrities become famous for actually doing much. But horses as actors? Isn’t their ‘acting’ all trickery and Computer Generated Imagery? Well, one of the greatest film directors of all time, Steven Spielberg, who directed the moving film War Horse with some 280 horses, has said: ‘The horses were an extraordinary experience for me, because several members of my family ride. I was really amazed at how expressive horses are and how much they can show what they’re feeling.’ War Horse, released in 2012, tells the epic tale of how Albert, a young boy, and his beloved farm horse, Joey, are separated and undergo harrowing adventures in World War One. In the process of filming, yes, there were stunts, props, tricks and Computer Generated Imagery (CGI), but there was also great acting by the horse stars. The horse actors had make-up – and indeed their own make-up artist. But what shines through, what really impresses the audience, is the personality and inherent beauty of the horses. No amount of cinematic trickery or CGI can replace the genuine dramatic qualities of horses. For example, horses provide a feast for the eyes. Throughout the history of cinema, audiences have fallen for the most glamorous screen stars. This is just as true for horse stars – especially the outstandingly beautiful ones with their gleaming coats of pure black or dazzling white, or the Palominos with a golden coat and flowing silver tail. Think of the well-toned bodies, with manes to die for, of horses such as Black Beauty, Gandalf's horse Shadowfax or Roy Rogers’ Trigger. Lights! Camera! Gallop! will introduce you to all these and many more: the great stars and some lesser-known but still brilliant actors, from the beginning of film to the present time. You will learn about their film characters and their real off-screen personalities. You’ll also find out about how some of the most awe-inspiring scenes involving horses were filmed and even how to spot some of the tricks of the trade. All the main genres of film featuring horses are covered: Westerns (great for stunts and exciting chase sequences), ‘wild horse’ movies (surviving against enormous odds), action films (even horses versus Nazis!) and comedies (horses on pianos, horses tricking humans – and a drunken horse). A word on terminology: many of the great horse actors were stars in the days when – for example – Native Americans were routinely referred to as ‘Indians’ and frequently depicted as ‘the cowboys’ enemy.’ This book focuses on the parts played by horses in the movies of those times; it does not condone the use of such discriminatory terms or the stories told in films. Some pictures are included to inspire you – glimpses of some beautiful horses and amazing stunts. This book will also give you tips on how to look up horse stars on the internet, how to find fascinating facts and where to watch key horse scenes from famous films on the internet – for free. Performances by classic horse stars from the 1950s, 1960s or 1970s – for example, in series such as The Lone Ranger or The High Chaparral – can occasionally be found on satellite or cable TV nowadays, or on DVDs. So towards the end of this book, you can find a list of key books, DVDs and websites where you can track down your favourite horses in film and on TV. And at the very end, you and your friends can test your knowledge with a fun quiz.

1. Black Beauty. Publicity still of Black Beauty, 1994. Copyright by Warner Bros Pictures and other respective production studios and distributors. Chapter 2 How the horse became a film star There were horse actors in stage shows and circuses for centuries, of course, but the story of horse actors in film starts with the very beginnings of the movies themselves. The first horses in films were simply there to provide a means of transport – at that time they were often still a key mode of transport in real life. It didn’t take long, though, for the horse to steal more and more screen time, by playing a far wider range of roles: as supporting actors, as stunt performers and as extras. By now, horses have had almost as many kinds of roles onscreen as their human counterparts. And as stars they have provided plenty of glamour and many strong characters. At the time of the earliest movies, America was of course the leading producer. It was a period when many Americans were keen on reminiscing about a glorious (if not wholly realistic) past through stories of the Wild West. It’s not surprising, then, that many of the first horse actors to really catch the audience’s attention were involved in the Western films which aimed to recreate that glorious past. And although horse actors started off in mainly supporting roles, horse stars were soon to emerge. William S Hart, a silent movie star and the first really famous screen cowboy, was also one of the first to bring his horse to stardom. Hart starred in many Westerns, such as Tumbleweeds and The Narrow Trail, and he aimed for realism, as opposed to the more wildly romanticised re-enactments found in the ‘Wild West’ stage shows popular until then. He started off by doing all his own fighting and riding stunts in films. A large black gelding named Midnight was the first horse Hart rode on-screen. However, Midnight’s owners refused to sell him outright to Hart and so he switched over to a smaller, brown and white pinto named Fritz. Fritz and Hart performed all sorts of stunts together, including riding over a canyon on a fallen tree, jumping over cliffs and swimming out of caves. The techniques of filming were not yet fully developed – there were no tracking shots, for instance – but audiences certainly loved Fritz. Hart reported that moviegoers sent the horse sugar lumps and fan mail. Some horses even rose to the dizzy heights of double-billing with their riders – or at any rate nearly equal billing. Just as Laurel and Hardy or Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were famous couples, so too were Tom Mix and his horse Tony, Roy Rogers and Trigger and of course Gene Autry and Champion. Tom Mix followed William S Hart’s lead in the cowboy-horse partnership but his style was quite different: where Hart had tried for gritty realism ‘as rough as the real thing’, Tom Mix was flamboyant and showy. Mix was originally best known for his daring stunts, but later became equally famous for his elaborate outfits. His movie image was that of a dandyish, squeaky-clean cowboy partnered by his famous steed, Tony the Wonder Horse. Mix’s movie career wound down in the 1930s, after silent films were replaced by talkies. Most of Mix’s films are no longer in existence, but on YouTube you can watch some creaky black and white clips – with sound – of Tony helping out his rider in times of trouble. Hopalong Cassidy managed to be completely different from both William S Hart and Tom Mix. Where Mix’s outfits were elaborate and Hart favoured the rough and ready style, Hoppy – as Cassidy’s character was affectionately known – and his horse Topper went in for a plainer look and a milder image. Although most of his films were B movies – a B-movie was a shorter, low-budget film designed as support for a main feature film in the days when an evening at the cinema usually involved a newsreel, a B movie and the main feature – they were outstanding for their time. By the early 1940s, Hoppy had made seven of them, filmed not by the big movie studios, but by independent producers. The photography was excellent and the settings picturesque. The films were followed by an extensive TV series. Hoppy and Topper’s bubbly innocence together caught the public’s attention, with catchy songs, cute antics and Hoppy’s oh-so-squeaky-clean screen character – he never swore, smoked or drank anything stronger than sarsaparilla (a soft drink popular in nineteenth-century America). But the most striking thing about them was their stunning appearance. Hoppy’s black outfit contrasted beautifully with his own white hair, but even more so with his snowy white horse, Topper. Topper was a stallion, with the classic finely shaped Arabian features – and black ears. Gene Autry’s horse Champion had a long and distinguished career in film, television and even on radio. Champion was a deep, rich brown with, unusually, three stockinged white feet. He had a distinctively shaped head with a large white blaze down his face. Tumbling Tumbleweeds (1935) was the first B Western Autry starred in, and promotional material from the time shows him on the original Champion. Champion’s own first onscreen credit was for the 1935 film Melody Trail, but he was soon being given equal billing with Gene - even above the leading ladies, on movie posters and marketing material – despite the fact that Autry was the one doing the singing. A Western couple who enjoyed much more lasting fame were Roy Rogers and his faithful horse Trigger. Rogers’ film persona was of a man who always fought fairly and on behalf of the (now more cynically viewed) values of truth, justice and ‘the American way’. A typical film starring Roy Rogers and Trigger would feature some sharp shooting – always in the interest of righting wrongs, of course – some guitar strumming and some songs, but there was always some fancy horse riding as well, and usually some horse tricks. Trigger was born in the early 1930s and his original name was Golden Cloud. Roy Rogers called him Trigger because his mental agility and physical speed suggested that he was ‘quick off the trigger’. He stood 15.3 hands high and was part Thoroughbred and part Quarter Horse. He is reported to have cost Rogers $2,500, an absolutely enormous sum for a horse in the 1930s. What really made Trigger exceptional was his colour: he was a Palomino with a stunning golden coat (as opposed to the creamy yellow coat of many Palominos) and a brilliant white and exceptionally long flowing mane and tail. Trigger’s acting debut was not, in fact, in a Western. In the 1938 film The Adventures of Robin Hood, starring Errol Flynn, Trigger (then still named Golden Cloud) played Maid Marian’s horse. In the Westerns, though, much of Trigger’s audience appeal stemmed from the obviously close working relationship he had with Roy Rogers. By the time they had done a number of films together, Roy Rogers could get Trigger to perform more than sixty different tricks and Trigger could walk an amazing 150 steps on his hind legs. In 1943 Republic Studios, which had Roy and Trigger under contract, declared Roy Rogers to be ‘King of the Cowboys’. This was an obvious marketing ploy – but it wasn’t challenged at the time. By 1965, over a hundred films were credited to Trigger. Few human actors can compete with that, even today. Trigger lived to be over thirty – very old indeed for a horse. A ‘Trigger’ continued to appear in films after he’d retired, however, because without publicity he was replaced by first a second and finally a third ‘Trigger’. One of these, Little Trigger, is the one which appeared in the 1952 film Son of Paleface, sharing a bed with Bob Hope and repeatedly snatching the bed covers from him. But it was the original Trigger who had the most acting parts. If you’re watching one of those old films, you can spot which is the original Trigger by the fact that the white blaze on his forehead went right down over his left eye and that only one of his feet had a white ‘stocking’. And some TV Western stars When television became generally available in Britain and the USA in the 1950s, it quickly attracted its own horse stars, some new to the screen altogether, some from film. For many of the horse actors who made the transition from film to television, TV soon became their mainstay – though a few did manage to keep going on both TV and film. In any event, TV soon had its own actor and horse double-bills, such as the Lone Ranger and Silver, or Hopalong Cassidy and Topper. Television could be more demanding for an actor than film: although standards weren’t quite so exacting, the fact that a series would be shown week after week meant that the acting took up far more time than for a one-off film. TV Western series were very much the soaps of their day. Gene Autry’s Champion made the transition from film, starring in the TV series The Adventures of Champion on CBS television in the mid-1950s. Champion played the part of a wild stallion of the same name who befriends a twelve-year-old boy in the American Southwest of the 1880s. In just about every episode, the boy would get into some kind of trouble, but was always rescued by Champion, often helped by the boy’s dog Rebel. During the lifetime of ‘Champion’ as film and TV star, three horses played the part, but the first and most glamorous was a Tennessee Walking Horse. Horses of this breed are noted for being calm and easygoing, and are typically easy to train; the name ‘Walking Horse’ comes from their particularly gliding, running walk. Champion was sorrel-coloured (reddish), with a white marking, or ‘blaze’, down his face and three white socks. The other two Champions, though also sorrel, were both slightly lighter in colour, and each had a different-sized white blaze on the face. Later there was also Little Champ, a small, well-trained trick pony, also a sorrel, who appeared in three of Gene's films. Champion also inspired a later TV series, Champion the Wonder Horse. Taken collectively as one horse – for after all, the audience watched and accepted them as one horse – Champion has seventy-nine film credits on the internet database IMDb. The Champions were said to have performed the world’s largest repertory of horse tricks, including jumping through a ring of fire, playing dead and dancing – and a Champion didn’t simply dance, he danced the Hula or the Charleston. The career of Silver Chief, the horse which played Silver, the Lone Ranger’s horse, moved in the opposite direction from that of Champion, because Silver became famous first on TV and then moved on to film. Like The Adventures of Champion, though, The Lone Ranger was another early TV series which rapidly built up a wide audience in the 1950s. It was about an unnamed, masked Texas Ranger in the American Old West, who galloped about on his horse Silver, righting injustices with the aid of his wise but laconic Native American assistant, Tonto. Silver was introduced to the audience at the beginning of each episode as ‘A fiery horse with the speed of light!’ At the end, the Lone Ranger would famously say, ‘Hi-Yo, Silver, away!’ (often misheard by the audience as ‘Hi-Ho’), as they galloped off. The theme tune for The Lone Ranger was the ‘cavalry charge’ finale of Rossini’s William Tell overture, and the series made that piece of music more famous than it had ever been in its own right. The Lone Ranger had well over two hundred episodes and ran from 1949 to 1961, including re-runs. It also successfully made the leap from black and white to colour TV in 1956. Silver Chief was a magnificent horse, white all over except for a couple of black dots around one eye. He had a distinctive mark on his neck that looked like a scar or possibly an elongated whorl pattern. (Many horses have round whorls or patterning in the hair on their necks and withers. They’re formed much like the ‘cowlicks’ some boys have in their hair.) His saddle and bridle were quite distinctive, with ornate silver medallions across his forehead and embossed silver on the saddle. Ever more glamorous roles The 1960s saw audiences begin to turn away from Westerns, and since then horses have featured more in other film genres. New roles were developed for them. Sometimes their chief function in a film, as with some human actresses or actors, was to be beautiful to look at, the pinnacle of perfection. A good recent example of this is the 1998 film The Mask of Zorro, in which Anthony Hopkins plays the original heroic swordsman Zorro, a masked and caped protector of the people in the time of Spanish colonial California. In this film, Zorro (Anthony Hopkins) is now an old man who sets himself the task of training a successor: the unlikely and rather gauche young Alejandro (Antonio Banderas). The original Zorro – and many in the audience would have known this from previous film and TV versions of Zorro – rode a stunning black stallion. The characters in the film explicitly acknowledge that a suitably powerful and attractive horse is a must-have for Alejandro if he is to be accepted by the local population (and of course, by the audience) as the new Zorro. So essential is such a horse that he has to be stolen from the under the very noses of his guards. The newly acquired black stallion is named Tornado (Toronado in Spanish), after the original Zorro’s horse. Tornado’s sheer beauty boosts Antonio Banderas’ appeal as the romantic lead – the stallion’s glamour seems to rub off on to his rider. Tornado is also given some comedy scenes during the build-up of the story, as when, for example, he appears deliberately to respond to Spanish commands but not to English ones. In one scene, he obediently stands below a window so that Alejandro can leap down on to him for a daring escape – then he moves forward just at the critical moment when Alejandro jumps. Tornado then turns to look, as if in disgust, at him sprawled unheroically on the ground. The male horses appearing in films are generally portrayed as stallions because stallions are usually more powerful and muscular. Sometimes, though, their parts were in fact played by geldings or even mares, because stallions can be both highly strung and unpredictable, making them difficult to work with. They tend to be aggressive towards other male horses too, especially if mares are present. There have, however, been some notable exceptions. The black stallion Tornado in the Mask of Zorro was played by Casey, a Friesian who was actually a stallion (though two other horses were used as Casey’s doubles in some scenes where he might have proved a handful). In the sequel, The Legend of Zorro, the horse playing the part was again actually a Friesian horse, this time named Ariaan, and the joke that he chooses not to understand English also featured. Shadowfax, the fabulous white horse ridden by Gandalf, stands out from a whole host of beautiful mounts in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. This trilogy, based on the books by J. R. Tolkien, follows two hobbits – small, hairy-footed human-like beings – on a mission to destroy the One Ring and so save Middle Earth. When the character Gandalf the Grey reinvents himself as Gandalf the White after his epic struggle with the demonic creature Balrog, his new whiteness is emphasised by the shot of him, with his long, flowing white hair and beard, galloping off across a vast landscape on his white horse with its own flowing white mane and tail, quite innocent of saddle or bridle. If you look carefully enough, however (you may have to pause/use freeze frame), there are a couple of scenes where you can – just – make out a set of white reins, barely showing against Shadowfax’s white coat. A TV series that owed its somewhat unexpected success to its beautiful horse actors was The White Horses, a Yugoslav-German co-production broadcast by the BBC in 1968 and repeated in the 1970s. Its twelve episodes were shot in black and white in Slovenia, and dubbed into English, usually a certain recipe for low ratings. The fact that it succeeded against the odds was due to its subject: a fifteen-year-old girl’s adventures on a Lipizzaner stud farm. The show’s evocative theme tune ‘White Horses’, sung by Jacky, was a Top Ten hit in 1968 and in 2003 was voted the greatest theme song in TV history. The BBC series itself is lost, but has been lovingly recreated with screen grabs from episodes, together with the dialogue, set out as English subtitles, on an internet blog (see the bibliography). Developing character As film and TV have evolved, so other roles for the horse have developed. Anna Sewell’s groundbreaking novel Black Beauty was written in 1877, a time when horses and other animals – and even children – were often treated cruelly, with complete disregard for any pain or discomfort they may have experienced. The author’s stated intention was to make people understand how horses felt, so that they would realise how they should be treated. Black Beauty is himself both the main character and the narrator of the story. The book was a great success and has inspired several films of the same name. In the 1994 version, which starred a Quarter Horse named Docs Keepin Time (who also starred as The Black in the TV series The Adventures of the Black Stallion), Black Beauty is given a wide range of emotions, revealed partly by his actions but also by his voice-over: he would say things like ‘Oh! If people knew what a comfort to horses a light hand is, and how it keeps a good mouth and a good temper...’ In the book and the films Black Beauty also has friends, horses with distinctive characters, most notably Ginger and Merrylegs. Ginger’s more rebellious character is emphasised partly by her colour – she is a bright, reddish chestnut – much as redheaded humans are routinely assumed to be fiery by nature (whether they are or not). Her personality is also displayed in her actions: she is prepared to use her teeth or hooves to resist ill-treatment, while Black Beauty is not. The Merrylegs character is a small, handsome, creamy-white pony, a cheerful animal, polite to humans and horses alike. Occasionally, horses in films were given credit for more human-like emotions than were credible, even with the willing participation of an audience eager to accept a certain element of fantasy. Thundering Hoofs is a 1942 film about a man who, after a row with his father, chooses the life of a cowhand rather than take charge of the family coach business. Near the end of the film, the hero’s horse, Silver King, discovers the father’s body. Then the title – it was a silent movie, so the words appeared on on-screen ‘titles’ between scenes – announces that ‘Silver King had one last duty to perform.’ We then see Silver King tap with his foot the top of an immaculate grave, complete with a cross and flowers. The improbable implication here is that Silver King had decorated the grave himself. The Horse as victim Films that depict the horse as victim are fortunately very rare. Perhaps because of this, and because of the affection that horses generally inspire, those that do show them as suffering are all the more shocking. For example, the 1977 film Equus opens with a psychiatrist investigating the horrific blinding of six horses with a metal spike. It turns out that these atrocities were committed by a seventeen-year-old stable boy, and the film focuses on the boy’s psychological background and on the psychiatrist’s own demons. It is a deeply unsettling film, especially for horse-lovers. The 1949 film, The Red Pony, was based on several stories by John Steinbeck, describing the harsh reality of life during the early nineteenth century. In the film, Tom, a boy of about ten who lives on a ranch, longs for a pony. The plot concerns his lack of connection with his father and how he learns about responsibility and loss. Tom is given the red pony of his dreams, but this unfortunately turns out to be the instrument by which the boy is taught a bitter lesson about life. Tom fails to keep the pony securely in the stable, so the pony escapes into the wet, becomes ill and dies an unforgettably agonising death, surrounded by buzzards waiting to eat his corpse. In the 1972 film The Godfather, which tells the story of the Corleone mafia dynasty, a movie producer named Woltz refuses at first to give singer Johnny, a protégé of the family, a part in his movie. So Johnny enlists the aid of the head of the family, Don Corleone, who sends his right-hand man Tom to ask Woltz to change his mind. The producer proudly shows Tom his racehorse, Khartoum, bought for $600,000, but he still refuses to give the part to Johnny. Tom maintains a polite and friendly demeanour, and the two men dine. Later that night, Woltz wakes up to find himself and his bed covered in blood. Lifting the covers, he finds Khartoum’s severed head in the bed. Needless to say, Johnny gets the role he wanted. The film’s director, Francis Ford Coppola, did use a real horse’s head for the scene, but the animal in question was long dead – the head had been supplied by a pet-food company. The 2007 film Atonement, starring Keira Knightley and James McAvoy, contains a harrowing scene set amidst the devastation on the beaches of Dunkirk during the evacuation of British troops in 1940. There McAvoy’s character, sick and wounded, is waiting to be taken back to England. Most of the audience would have known the basic facts of the situation – defeated British soldiers facing a long wait to be rescued by sea – but they probably wouldn’t have expected to see a line of horses under British control. There is a chilling sequence where a soldier walks along the line, shooting all the horses one by one, killing them rather than let them fall into German hands. The horse as villain Another role the horse has not as a rule played is that of villain. But as with most rules, there have been exceptions. Films about wild horses usually feature a ‘bad’ or rival horse which our hero or heroine horse must defeat in some way, usually as a love rival or in fighting for the role of leader of the herd. The chapter on wild horses has some examples of these horse villains.