Friday, July 29, 2011

The Horse without a Head (1963)

You don’t need expensive fancy toys in order to amuse yourself. All you need is energy, creativity, and imagination.  These quality traits are on prominent display in children. Especially poor children whom don’t have a lot and must learn how to get along with the little that is given to them.   The five children in this story collectively own a toy horse on wheels that is missing its head.  
They spend their days riding this horse down the city streets in a  quiet suburban French town.  Trying to break the record for fastest horse rider they continue to whoosh through the streets not caring who they crash into, a street vendor, a guy on a bike, the local policeman etc.  Eventually they end up (metaphorically speaking) crashing into a gang of bank robbers who have stolen a hundred million francs from a train and somehow end up needing the horse to get back their hidden pile of loot.
This made for european feature/american tv film is pleasantly amusing with nothing offensive and has a likable gang of kids that you can pal around with for 90 minutes. The only kid that stands out is this girl who every time she whistles, dogs come running to her beckon call ready to bite whomever she tells them to.  She could carry a film all on her own.  There is also a rather amusing time rummaging around a warehouse full of masks and party stuff.
This may not be one of the best Disney films ever made but it sure is better then quite a lot of the Disney kids films of later years.  I’m waiting for the sequel ‘The Cow without a Body’.

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