Tonka (1958)

Tonka (based on the book ‘Comanche: Story of America's Most Heroic Horse’ by David Appel) brings us once again to Disney’s 1950’s frontier land. The film tells the true life (but fictionalized back-story) of the lone survivor of the losing side of Custer’s Last Stand, ‘The Battle of Little Big Horn’.  Tonka (short for Tonka Wakon) (or the Great One) (or Jackie Gleason) is your all American wild young horse running though the wastelands of the Dakotas when he is captured by White Bull who trains him to be a tame and domesticated horse. Tonka even has his own cool theme song playing during the credits. It is almost as cool as Davy Crockett’s theme song.

White Bull is your average all Native American Indian Sioux teenage boy who dreams of going into battle and taking many scalps. He wants to take scalps while hanging with his best bud and proving to his jerk and bully of a cousin Yellow Bull, his mother Prairie Flower, and the rest of the tribe that he is indeed a man.  He wants to prove he is not the goofy kid who lost Yellow Bull’s prize yellow rope and also lost his gift of a bow and arrow given to him by chief Sitting Bull himself.  When I was his age I dreamed of dating and kissing many girls lips, proving I was gifted by acting in school plays and talent shows, and by being a goofy kid.

                When Tonka the horse (not to be confused with Tonka the toy truck making company) is eventually taken possession of by Captain Myles Keogh he is renamed Comanche the horse. Tonka the movie is a good example of how a bloody piece of American history can be made into a watchable family feature. The reality of the massacre is still there but without all the graphic details that would be put into the picture if it was being made today. A guy gets shot with an arrow or a gun and they just fall over and go ‘Aaaaahhh’. Tonka is more or less a story of a boy and his horse that happens to take place during a war.

Tonka is a worthwhile and watchable (rare) Disney film to watch.  It is cheery despite the subject matter. And for the diehard Disney fan you might want to let White Bull ride Tonka into your DVD collection for repeated viewings into history as seen through the lens of the 1950’s.