The Littlest Outlaw (1955)

Our final film of 1955 takes us back to Mexico.  We haven’t been here since Three Caballeros!  Hopefully, we get to see a little more of the culture there, even if this movie’s entirely fictional.  And there are horses.  Horses are cool.  Everyone likes horses.

Disclaimer: This blog is purely recreational and not for profit. Any material, including images and/or video footage, are property of their respective companies unless stated otherwise. The authors’ claim no ownership of this material. The opinions expressed therein reflect those of the authors and are not to be viewed as factual documentation. All photos are capped from my copy of the movie with InstantShot! unless otherwise specified.

Throughout the earlier days of the studio, Larry Lansburgh directed short films.  He had a particular talent for stories centered on animals, especially horses, earning him Oscars for films like The Wetback Hound, The Horse With the Flying Tail, and Run Appaloosa Run.  Eventually, he thought up an idea for a film about a child rescuing an abused horse, which storyman Bill Walsh fleshed out into a script.  Lansburgh stayed on as a director and was heavily involved with the filming process.  Once again, the crew went on-location, this time to Mexico.  An entirely bilingual cast shot the film twice: once in English and once in Spanish, eliminating the need to dub the film with different actors for the international release.

The Littlest Outlaw was released on December 22, 1955, to lukewarm reviews.  Critics praised the performance of the young star Andrés Velázquez, but otherwise dismissed it.  They felt that the movie was forgettable, bland, and unremarkable.  It’s always a great sign when audiences of the 1950s were bored.  It really gets me amped up for a film from an era that I already struggle with.  But who knows?  I’ve been surprised before, so let’s saddle up and ride.

STORY

At the end of the credits, a bunch of horses run through the Mexican grassland. General Torres and another soldier watch eagerly as the handlers open up a trailer to release the general’s prize horse: Conquistador.  The General orders the lead horse trainer, Chato, to pull Conquistador away from Pablito the stable boy and down onto the trail. Chato immediately establishes that he’s the bad guy by shoving Pablito out of his way. Pablito establishes that he loves this horse with a reaction shot of his sad little face. It’s actually some nicely done character exposition, all done without dialogue.

Chato watches as the General rides the majestic Conquistador out, telling two other soldiers that Conquistador is way better than their “goats”. But Conquistador biffs it on a wall jump, to everyone’s consternation. Despite this failure, Chato bets the soldiers that Conquistador can win the upcoming race. Pablito even bursts in to declare that Conquistador is the best horse ever and he can beat every horse in the world. You know, as ten-year-olds in Disney live-action movies do. The soldiers laugh at Chato for getting told by his stepson but agree to let him bet.

The General orders Chato to find a way to get Conquistador over that wall jump. As they travel back to the ranch, Pablito promises Conquistador that he’s the best horse in the world and he’ll show them all someday soon. When the trailer pulls up to the paddock, Conquistador runs around happy to be free. The General’s daughter Celita sees the car coming up to their manor and races out to greet him, already in riding gear. He tells her she can ride a nice, steady, reliable mare but the stubborn girl wants to ride Conquistador. He thinks the strong-willed horse is too dangerous but she pulls the “it’s because I’m a girl, isn’t it?” card. Before he can correct her that no, it’s because he doesn’t want her to get splattered, she jumps onto her mare and rides furiously around the paddock.

Hours later, Celita still isn’t back. The General questions Pablito, who’s working with Conquistador. He hasn’t seen her, but three seconds later she conveniently shows up. He scolds her for treating the mare like a stress ball, but immediately backpedals and apologizes for snapping at her. No, you absolutely should have snapped at her. But points to you for knowing when to apologize to your kid. She claps right back about how she’s not one of his soldiers, and honestly, it is some of the worst dialogue I have ever heard. No ten-year-old uses the word nor, I’m sorry. I still have to hand it to the General. He actually compromises with his daughter. He’ll let her ride Conquistador, but only after the race.

Meanwhile, Chato creeps around a tavern that apparently doubles as a barbershop. What? There’s legit a guy mixing soap while taking a shot. This town is weird. All the patrons laugh at him for making such a stupid bet on a horse that can’t even make a wall jump. He sticks to his guns, though, and more and more people convince him to bet more and more money on this horse. The barber even gets total strangers in on it. This can only end poorly. Everyone thinks Chato’s impending misfortune is hilarious, but it’s too late for him now. The hole has been dug. Naturally, there’s only one thing for it: abuse the horse.  We’re crossing the Moral Event Horizon early here, folks.

Because he is the worst, Chato spends the morning nailing spikes to the top of the wall. One of the other hands points out that this is really quite terrible and the General will not be happy when he finds out. So Chato decides he won’t find out. Okay, dude. His logic is that a little pain will incentivize Conquistador to jump a little higher, enabling him to win the exorbitant amount of money he’s bet. As the hand leaves to get the horse, Pablito bursts out screaming that Chato just can’t do something so terrible, he just can’t. Chato smacks his stepson with the spikes to get him to go away and orders him not to tell anyone what he’s doing to this poor horse. So that’s a good sign. The hand brings out Conquistador and Chato mounts. Conquistador actually makes the jump thanks to the spikes, but when Chato turns him around to try again he’s too scared to even try to jump again. Furious, Chato brutally whips Conquistador and when Pablito jumps in front to protect him, he whips him too.

That night, Pablito lays sobbing on the floor of their casita. I think it’s supposed to drive home how badly abused he is because there’s a perfectly good bed right there and he’s laying in a sarape. I don’t know. This movie’s bad at explaining things. Chato enters and tells his stepson that he whipped him because he wasn’t listening. Yet he says it with such calmness and conviction that it almost sounds reasonable, which is rather impressive from a performance perspective. He explains, still calm as anything, that he really needs Conquistador to win because he bet a ton of money he doesn’t have, which to me sounds like a you problem. He finishes up by warning that if the General finds out about the spikes, it will be very, very bad for both Pablito and Conquistador. Terrified, Pablito agrees to keep quiet, earning praise from his evil stepfather. Poor kid.

Race day arrives, and with it horses from all over the world. Chato pets Conquistador’s nose as they get him ready, pretending to be nice and genial. All the horses nail their wall jumps… except for one. Conquistador is still terrified of jumping, much to the General’s irritation. Celita is the first person to notice what the real problem is- he’s terrified, and Pablito denying it doesn’t convince her at all. Chato lies to the General and says he doesn’t know what the horse is afraid of but the General doesn’t buy it for a second. Pablito rushes in to come clean but a glare from Chato stops him in his tracks. A hand brings the General another horse and assures him that they can still win. Celita offers her sympathies to Pablito, who spouts some suspiciously specific denial about how none of this is Conquistador’s fault. It’s Chato’s, and he’s in deep trouble because his creditors have found him. Back in the trailer, Pablito tearfully apologizes to the horse for being too scared to tell the truth.

Despite all the chaos that just went down, Celita is determined to make good on her father’s promise and ride Conquistador. Pablito, doing his duty as a stable boy, informs her that the General doesn’t want anyone riding Conquistador. Celita does not listen to anyone ever and gets Conquistador saddled up herself. She mounts the enormous stallion and rides him through the paddock, ignoring Pablito’s protests that the horse is sick and she needs to stop. He still refuses to jump but Celita is determined. She tries to force him to get over that wall just as the General’s car pulls up. He witnesses Conquistador’s hoof catch the edge of the wall, hurting his leg and throwing her to the ground. She smacks her head on the wall which knocks her unconscious. The General rushes in, horrified, as Pablito pulls the wounded horse away from the scene. Chato wastes no time blaming Pablito and in his grief, the General believes him, ordering Pablito sent away and Conquistador killed.

Poor Pablito has to beg for Conquistador’s life when Chato knows very well what the problem is. Chato orders Pablito to shut up and take the horse to the stable and his death. As Pablito begs and Conquistador fights, Chato storms into the house to get his gun. Disney is not messing around this time. But when he gets to the stable to deliver the killing blow, Conquistador’s stall is empty! Enraged, Chato rushes through the town in search of Pablito and Conquistador. He goes to the blacksmith and demands to know if he’s seen the kid. The blacksmith doesn’t even dignify him with a reply. It’s a good thing, too, because boy and horse are hiding just behind the wall where Chato could easily have spotted them if he’d looked like ten feet to the left. The blacksmith shoots Pablito a winning grin, happy to help the boy escape his abusive life. Pablito seizes Conquistador’s reins and the two begin their new lives as the littlest outlaws.

Back home, the still-heartbroken General lays Celita down on the bed. The doctor isn’t sure she’ll ever walk again, which is probably not super comforting. Also not comforting is the bad news Chato returns with: Pablito and Conquistador are nowhere to be found. The General violently shakes him and orders him to find them despite his soldiers’ remark that killing the horse is not going to help Celita any. Pablito hasn’t gone far, though. He walks into the tavern-slash-barbershop asking for some supplies to clean Conquistador’s wound. The barber is happy to help but has to question why the horse’s trainer isn’t taking care of the injured horse. Pablito gets very cagey, but the barber’s not going to snitch on him. He and his patrons would loooove to get their hands on Chato for cheating them all. The barkeep/barber cleans and bandages Conquistador’s leg just as Chato shows up. The creditors race after him, chasing Chato away and giving Pablito and Conquistador the chance to escape.

Boy and horse walk. And walk. And they walk some more. Sometimes the soldiers chase them. And then they walk some more. It goes on for like twenty minutes. I’m not even sure if I’m exaggerating or not. It’s a really, really long montage. There’s a darkened street, a grassland, some desert, the top of a cliff, a graveside, two rivers, and more desert. Nothing happens. They just walk. Finally, finally, they get somewhere. It’s an abandoned town. They walk through it some more. I’m still really, really bored. Pablito calls around to see if there are any people around. For a long, long, long time. Suddenly, Pablito gets jumpscared by two bandits lying in wait in an empty house! Or at least he would have been jumpscared if they’d bothered with music.

The lead bandit, Tiger, notes how odd it is to find a poor and dirty boy leading such a beautiful, well-groomed horse. His friend Vulture only sees dollar signs. Together, they get started on conning the boy. Tiger pretends to be the town’s Chief of Police and accuses Pablito of stealing the horse, which, of course, he totally did. He seizes Pablito and tosses him into a makeshift jail cell while Vulture starts to hitch Conquistador to a wagon. Pablito pleads for them to stop because he’s hurt and he’s not a wagon horse, he’s General Torres’s prized racehorse. You want to not scream that in front of everyone, kid? Especially bandits who are already trying to steal your horse?

For some reason, this convinces Tiger not to steal the horse because the kid is so clearly one of them. Instead, he makes up his mind to take care of the boy. Vulture rightfully is stunned that Tiger would change his mind for such a stupid reason and Tiger urges Pablito to run away before Vulture kills him. Pablito sticks to his guns out of sheer love for his horse and also sheer stupidity.  The next morning, Tiger feeds Pablito breakfast on dishes stolen “before he was Chief of Police” while Vulture glares daggers at them.  He assures the boy that they’re very bad men, but Pablito isn’t convinced that these thieves, one of which still wants to kill him, are bad at all because they gave him food and medicine.  Vulture is offended but Tiger tells him to shut up and gives Pablito a silk dress to give to the wife of one Señor Garcia.  Garcia owns the railway station, and if Pablito bribes him, he’ll take him far away.  Pablito thanks the two criminals kindly and gets back to walking.

Mercifully, the movie cuts to the railway station instead of subjecting us to more tedious walking. Señor Garcia and his wife are eating breakfast when Pablito turns up, screaming to the world that he stole the General’s horse and teamed up with bandits. Garcia hears Tiger’s name and refuses to help, but his wife has her eyes on the reward General Torres doubtlessly has on Conquistador’s return. She convinces Garcia to put Pablito on the next train back where he came from and pocket the money. With his eyes on the prize, Garcia locks Pablito and Conquistador in a cattle car, making him think he’s safe. And then the train pulls back into the station. Garcia meets Chato and demands his reward money… but by some contrived nonsense, the train doesn’t stop! Garcia tries to chase the train, but obviously, he doesn’t stand a chance. Boy and horse are gone.

Safe and sound in San Miguel, Pablito leads Conquistador through the driving rain. And there is more walking. Eventually, they take shelter and awake to the sounds of a fiesta! And man, this is the most boring parade I have ever seen. The mariachi band’s trumpets aren’t even in tune and it lasts forever. For. Ev. Er. At least there are puppies. Cute fuzzy puppies. Everyone likes puppies. The reason there are puppies, burros, and other animals is because it’s the Feast Day of St. Anthony, patron saint of the animals. We know this because Pablito joins the procession to hide in plain sight, and they end up in front of the kindly priest who blesses the animals in the saint’s name. And then the procession begins again and oh my god this wasn’t interesting the first time why are we doing this again?

Chato’s truck drives through the dull, musicless parade, honking at the revelers to let him through. Oblivious, Pablito searches the town for something to eat because he’s so hungry he could eat a horse… sorry. A cow. This is what passes for humor in this movie, folks. He finally spots the car and bolts, and for some reason, Chato decides to get out of the car and give chase on foot. Pablito hides in the church, interrupting a wedding that the same priest is officiating. Everyone is distracted, even the bride and groom. Meanwhile, Chato continues to search a weirdly silent corner of the town. The priest demands to know what a horse is doing in church. Thinking fast, Pablito points out that the same priest blessed all the animals just a few moments before. The priest’s resultant waffling is actually pretty funny, but it does give Chato the chance to enter the church. He walks through the pews, drawing the priest’s attention. Pablito hides in another room as the priest attempts to kill Chato with kindness.

The priest smothers Chato with smiles and Christian charity. He pretends Chato is here to seek guidance from the Lord to help him find his lost horse despite Chato’s protests that he’s sure the horse is hidden here. Jovially, the priest offers to “help” him search the church, steering him away from Conquistador’s actual hiding spot. As they move through frescos and statues of Jesus being nailed to the cross, Chato visibly gets more and more uncomfortable at being reminded of his many sins. The priest senses his guilty conscience and offers to let him get it off his chest, but before he can decline, Chato heard Conquistador whinny. He knows the priest lied but the priest is ready. The horse is protected under the laws of sanctuary and Chato will not touch him. Man, I wish I was watching Hunchback. Foiled again, Chato storms out. The priest prays for forgiveness for his lie, but he doesn’t feel like he did anything wrong because he protected an innocent boy. More comedic indecision ensues.

The priest feeds Pablito breakfast the next morning and attempts to teach the kid valuable life lessons about right and wrong. And he does it pretty well, understanding why Pablito stole the horse but disapproving because Conquistador isn’t his. It’s another pretty good parenting moment. It’s just a shame Pablito runs off in the middle of it, handing an apple to Conquistador to prove that he, a ten-year-old child, knows better than anyone how to take care of a horse. But Conquistador refuses to eat from the stress of being an outlaw and the pain of his injury. When the priest points this out, Pablito cries out that he’s just sure he can take care of him because he is a live-action Disney child and that is what they do. The priest doesn’t buy this for a second and offers to talk to a ranch owner who knows the General and make peace, but Pablito refuses. Defeated, the priest sighs and changes the subject, asking the boy to take a handmade angel figure up to the bell tower to begin the fiesta.

Throngs of people gather in the square to celebrate the Feast of St. Anthony. Once Pablito begins the festivities, everyone dances and parties under the light of a thousand fireworks. This is a lot less interesting than it sounds like because once again, there is no music. At all. It’s just fireworks whistling. For like ten minutes. During this, Pablito leaves the mission with Conquistador and walks and walks and walks some more. The priest decides Pablito needs to learn his own lesson and lets him go. Chato pursues them but keeps losing them in the chaos of the festival. Pablito grabs a mask off a stall to hide his identity but dude you are hauling an enormous horse, I think that is enough of a giveaway. Chato keeps searching. Pablito keeps walking. Fireworks keep blasting. Finally, Pablito returns to the mission, sheepishly taking his mask off and looking up at the priest, the picture of contrition. So that whole sequence was completely pointless.

After the festival finally ends, the priest drives Pablito over to Ortiz’s ranch with Conquistador hitched to the back of the car. He knows exactly how Pablito feels about his beloved horse because that’s how much he loves his car. I’m pretty sure that’s not really a fair comparison because the car isn’t, you know, alive. It was pretty fun to see that people named their cars even in the ‘50s, though. They putter up to Don Pepe Ortiz’s ranch and the man himself greets them warmly. He also introduces them to his friend, the vet Ignacio, who is looking after a wounded bull because he can cure anything. He’s very willing to drop everything for this random horse. While he works his magic, Don Pepe shows Pablito around the ranch and offers some pretty solid life advice about facing your own problems. He offers to help out and tell General Torres what’s happened, but Pablito opts to keep running because he’s terrible. Don Pepe shrugs and repeats that Pablito has to learn to fight his own bull.

Speaking of bulls, one escapes its pen and charges Conquistador, chasing the injured and terrified horse into the countryside. Don Pepe and his men race off to find him. By nightfall, they return empty-handed. The priest promises his thoughts and prayers and tells everyone to get some rest. The next morning, the priest drives Pablito back into town in the hopes that someone in the city will have seen the horse running wild. Along the way, they pass a caravan and ask if they’d seen a beautiful horse worth a lot of money. And I cringed hard. This movie was doing so well at representing Mexican culture realistically and fairly, so naturally, we had to go after another acceptable ethnic group because why not? Even the driver is like “wow so even you think we steal?” and denies having seen anything. Upon examination though, Pablito finds that the caravan’s burro is hitched up with Conquistador’s bridal. The caravan driver knows he’s in deep trouble. Still trying to evade stereotypes, the driver offers more suspiciously specific denials while still telling them he sold the horse to the bull ring in San Miguel. I thought that’s where we just came from but hey, what do I know? This movie is boring.

Back at the bull ring we may or may not have just left, the matadors are preparing for a fight. And this is where the movie gets truly appalling from an animal rights perspective. The hands blindfold the spirited horse and get ready to throw him into the ring against the bulls. The problem is, they had to actually blindfold the thing and throw him in against actual bulls. Filming this just makes my heart cry for these poor things. And it gets worse. There’s actual bullfighting and what I think might be real blood on some of the animals and oh the 50s why are you like this. During all this, the priest’s car breaks down outside the city and General Torres recognizes his horse from the audience. Pablito sneaks up to the top of the audience, narrowly avoiding falling into the bull pen multiple times while Chato chases him along the tops of the railings. A bull sticks Conquistador with his horns and gets kicked in the face which is awful on both sides. Chato also almost gets gored but makes it down to the ring, only to be surrounded by the creditors. They drag him off and that’s the last we see of him.

Pablito also makes it into the ring, making a rather impressive leap onto Conquistador’s back and yanking off the blindfold. He rides the horse to the dreaded wall… and Conquistador jumps over without hesitation! The bull rams the door but they’re already gone. The soldiers flanking General Torres ask if they should give chase, but he opts to let them go. What? Why?! The reason he gives is that they’ve done enough running, but what?!  That doesn’t even make sense! Ugh. Later on, General Torres tells the story of the amazing leap Conquistador made in the bull ring to a wheelchair-bound Celita. Pablito and Conquistador haven’t been seen since so Celita decides then and there that they need to find them. There’s no need, though, because they wander up thirty seconds later. Pablito is ready for his punishment but only asks that the General let Conquistador live. This movie officially dispenses with any attempt to make sense because the General tells him he has no right to kill the horse… because he’s Pablito’s now! What?! What?!  What?! The movie ends with Pablito and a miraculously-healed-because-reasons Celita riding through the sunset, nailing wall jumps all the way.

This movie was so dull. Sequences dragged on forever with absolutely nothing happening. Character motivations made no sense. Events just kinda happened with no logical connection. It’s a real shame, too, because the first twenty minutes or so set up a pretty decent story about escaping abuse. It’s only once Pablito becomes an outlaw that the movie just takes a nosedive. That should be the most interesting part, but no. It is not. It’s very telling that most of the summaries I read as research basically stopped after Pablito’s escape, which happens fairly early on. It’s because all of the events are packed into the beginning. And that is just really bad story structure. Add that to the animal abuse by both the characters and the filmmakers, and I was just cringing the whole time.  The plot is utterly forgettable and really nothing stands out for any particularly good reason.

CHARACTERS

Pablito is our protagonist.  He’s got all the personality of a slice of white bread.  He’s a major part of the reason why this movie is so utterly uninteresting because his main character trait is that he really loves this horse.  That’s it.  Andrés Velázquez is probably the best child actor we’ve seen so far but he’s given hardly anything to work with.  It’s a real shame, too.  The kid has talent.  He just needs a better script that consists of more than just yelling to all and sundry that he stole the General’s horse.

Chato got off to such a good start as a villain.  He’s smooth and suave and has this gift for making even his very worst actions seem reasonable and convincing, thanks to Rodolfo Acosta’s chilling delivery.  He’s an abusive, greedy gambler and a cheat, but he’s so calm and polite about it he doesn’t come off that way.  There’s even a great moment in the church where he comes face to face with the eyes of Jesus where he just knows how terrible he is.  It reminded me of Frollo being judged by the eyes of Notre Dame.  Unfortunately for such a complex villain, he suffers from being ridiculously underused.  For a solid two-thirds of the movie, maybe more, all he does is run through the street.  It’s a real shame.  He could have been an excellent complex villain.

General Torres is one of the best Disney fathers I’ve ever seen.  He loves his daughter and treats her as a person, even compromising when she wants something he’s not sure about. I feel like it’s incredibly rare to see parents treat their young kids like people in media and it was really heartwarming to see. Unfortunately, he’s villainized through most of the movie because in his grief and anger over his daughter’s serious injury he wants revenge. But honestly? I sympathize more with him than Pablito. His daughter could have been permanently paralyzed and his horse was stolen. He’s clearly the wronged party here.

Celita is a very minor character but it’s her stubbornness and refusal to listen to anyone that kickstarts the plot. I know you want to ride the horse but when your dad says he can’t be ridden there might be a reason for it. Also, her dialogue is truly bizarre. No ten year old uses the careful diction and prim and proper vocabulary she does. It sounds incredibly stilted and unnatural.

MUSIC

The music in this movie is conspicuous by how much it’s not there. Sure, there are some instances of generic cheerful 50s melodies but moments you’d expect some kind of musical sting like the jumpscare that introduces Tiger and Vulture or Celita’s fall are just silent. Even the festival has no music, except for some painfully offkey trumpets. It’s bizarre. Maybe if the music had been better utilized this film wouldn’t have been quite so bland, but here we are.

ARTISTRY

The Littlest Outlaw was shot on location in Mexico and they took every opportunity to showcase that. As dull as they are, the sequences of Pablito and Conquistador making their way through the desert are stunning. They really took their time to use their surroundings and the colorful Mexican culture to make it look lovely. Sure, it’s a lot of brown, but the pops of color that show up at night and during the fiesta stand out all the more for it. And again, it’s a desert. You can’t really fault it for being brown.

FINAL THOUGHTS

A simple boy-and-his-horse story can work, and the element of lawbreaking and vigilantism should be really exciting.  But all the plot is packed into the first twenty minutes, leaving a solid hour of just walking from place to place.  Nothing happens through the majority of the movie and I don’t understand why they chose to pace it so bizarrely.  I did feel like Mexico was presented a lot more fairly than it was back in The Three Caballeros, probably because the majority of the cast and crew were Mexican which is a huge step up. However, the climax of the movie is packed with some horrific animal cruelty and I’m not entirely sure it was staged.  It’s the nail in the coffin for an already pretty forgettable film.

Favorite scene: General Torres telling Celita she can ride Conquistador after the competition.  It gave me the warm fuzzies something fierce.

Final rating: 2/10.  Those poor, poor bulls and horses….  And seriously, when entire plot summaries can stop at the 20-minute mark without missing anything, there’s an issue.