The Littlest Horse Thieves

Rating:
Summary: This was the most depressing movie I've ever seen!
Review: I first saw this movie when I was about 40 years old. Thankfully, I was watching it alone because I cried so hard at the end. Whenever I tell someone about the movie, it was so SAD that I could start crying just explaining what the movie was about. It was really good until the end and the ending was so disturbing, I would never watch it again!

Rating:
Summary: This was the most depressing movie I've ever seen!
Review: I first saw this movie when I was about 40 years old. Thankfully, I was watching it alone because I cried so hard at the end. Whenever I tell someone about the movie, it was so SAD that I could start crying just explaining what the movie was about. It was really good until the end and the ending was so disturbing, I would never watch it again!

Rating:
Summary: Sad, but realistic
Review: In early 1900s Yorkshire, England, three young children liberate a group of Shetland ponies that are being mistreated in the coal mines and whose reward for all their hard work is the glue factory. One pony in particular, dark-blinded Flash, is especially beloved by the kids. They get the miners behind their cause, and the whole town is turned upside down in the melee. The ending is quite sad, but that's the stuff of which Disney classics are made (Old Yeller, anyone?).

Staci Layne Wilson
Author of Staci's Guide to Animal Movies


Rating:
Summary: a surprising little gem
Review: Its odd how the most underated films can really surprise you. I saw this film for the first time recently, and I regret now not seeing it as a child, I had put off seeing it for such a long time. I did not expect to get too involved about the welfare of a few pit ponies; but honestly the film; inc story; performances and attention to detail are so well done that it almost has a timeless quality about it. Modest as it is; be warned the happy ending only comes with a rather surprising price unexpected for disney in the 70s. Rosemary Anne Sisson,wrote the screenplay also penned 'Ride a Wild Pony' for disney which came out around the same time; also recommended as a companion to this film, hopefully one day that film will be released as well.

Rating:
Summary: Pit ponies
Review: Stupid. I bought thsi for my siter, and she hated it, and she is about as smart as one of the ponies in the movie. Pictur quality if AWFUL. I should have bought her the VHS version and saved 8 bucks. Actualy I should have just bought her a good movie. A VERY BAD MOVIE

Rating:
Summary: Two stars because it is not as bad as THE BEACH
Review: Stupid. I bought thsi for my siter, and she hated it, and she is about as smart as one of the ponies in the movie. Pictur quality if AWFUL. I should have bought her the VHS version and saved 8 bucks. Actualy I should have just bought her a good movie. A VERY BAD MOVIE

Rating:
Summary: A great pit pony film
Review: This film was filmed entirely in the forbidding Yorkshire moors. It tells the story about the small working ponies that have spent their entire lives down in the coal mines and are about to be sold to the slaughterhouse. Although many famous faces appear, the real star of the show must surely be Flash the pit pony. Wrinkles

Rating:
Summary: "Vintage" Disney Classic
Review: This is the sort of quality family fare that will rarely, if ever, be made again. Produced in the mid 70's when 'The Waltons' was popular and America wasn't so afflicted with Attention Deficit Disorder, it earns its place as one of the best in Disney's period piece library. The cinematography is excellent with many colorful landscape panoramas and some choice episodes including a dog racing event in the Yorkshire countryside, visually interesting shots of old-fangled colliery machinery, worklife inside the coal mines, and an honest rendering of family life inside the village homes.

The characters of the story are all cast with competent actors, both child and adult. The films' action derives from the resourceful efforts of the kids to save the colliery ponies whose fate is a grim one in the face of production efficiencies soon to be installed by mine owner Alastair Sim-(played Scrooge in 'A Christmas Carol') The film has an innocent charm, although a little dated in both the period of history it covers and its storyline and humor. Even so its charm and quiet drama build to a surprisingly effective climax. There's a sense you've been treated to a unique glimpse of the past with a wide array of period detail providing rich realism. Anyone with patient appreciation for the concerns of children and an interest in the historic difficulties posed by economic/industrial evolution will find a gem in this film. Kids not addicted to video games may also find it enjoyable. Thanks Anchor Bay for a very good transfer to DVD.