The Littlest Outlaw (1955)

The Littlest Outlaw (1955)

The littlest Outlaw’ is one of the rare theatrical Disney releases not available on DVD.  It’s rare also in the fact that it is a American made Mexican film.  While other cinematic  shlock continues to pollute video stores and Netflix, this rare little gem is available to view on Amazon on Demand. 

 The life of a horse rider is a wonderful exciting life filled with adventure.  The opening shot of this film shows this excitement as horses leap and soar over obstacles strewn along well traveled horse paths.  Chato does not have the luxury to ride horses, but gets to train them for the riders. One of the horses he trains happens to be the one and only ‘Conquistador’ owned by General Torres himself. 

 However, this champion of horses can not successfully make the high jumps on the horse track.  With the big horse tournament coming up this does not look good for the General wanting to be the big shot at the event.

To motivate the horse to jump better, Chato puts sharp spindles just atop of one of the higher jumps during horse jumping training. The philosophy is that the horse will jump higher to avoid the pain.  Chato is so confident that this will work he places a bet with the local bookie, who also just happens to be the local barber.

Come the day of the big race, Chato’s methods prove to be as about as effective as pouring gasoline on a fire to make it go out.  The horse knowing that something nasty is coming if he jumps over the horse jump, does what any sensible horse would do. He avoids it.  Conquistador is then put in quarantine for embarrassing the general in front of all his would be fans by not jumping. This saddens Chato’s stepson Pablito who loves the horse.  He was witness to all the cruelty and would gladly spill the beans on this fine example of animal cruelty, but his jerk of a step father has promised swift retribution on the horse if this happens. Thus Pablito remains quiet.

The General’s strong-headed young daughter Celita is determined to ride Conquistador regardless of the ban on him.  She rides him all around her yard attempting to race him over jumps, which of course fails. As the horse stops at one jump, the girl keeps on going injuring herself. This second offensive is the last strike in Conquistador’s fate. He gets the death sentence from the General, which Chato is only too pleased to carry out feeling rather anxious to get rid of the horse he had trained him for failure.  Little Pablito seeing the injustice of this situation takes off with the horse, on the run from his step father, the general and the law.

As we journey with this fugitive from injustice, we meet several interesting characters along the way including a couple of bandits hiding out in a ghost-town.  The ‘Tiger’ is the sheriff of this 2 person town and the other resident is the Vulture.  Moving on, Pablito takes sanctuary in a church during the feast of St. Anthony.  Pablito and his horse arrive in the Good Padre’s church during a wedding ceremony. He convinces the Padre that since he blessed his horse during the blessing of the animals, he belongs in the church.  The padre accepts this logic and becomes a friend to the boy and the horse.

The shots of the interior church are beautiful and bring the cultural and religious atmosphere of Mexico in bright vivid display. The beauty of the church is reflected in the bright sunny Christ-like character of the priest who helps to guide Pablito in to doing the right thing regarding the horse.

The long dusty road of the life of an outlaw brings the Padre, Pablito, and a pursuing Chato to a bull fight in which the characters try to get to Conquistador before the mad bull, which has a taste for ramming into horses gets to him first.

The final outcome is fitting for a Disney style adventure story featuring a young boy, a horse, and a not so nice antagonist. It’s a fine example of a film you can watch with the young-in's without having to be embarrassed by fowl language (not even foreign language) innuendo (there are not too many women in this picture) or fart jokes. If your a Disney fan or a film fan in general, you might want to have ‘The Littlest Outlaw’ hide out in your computer for family movie night.