"Wild Stallion" is a western from Monogram Pictures. And, like many early to mid-1950s westerns from this studio and Republic, it was made using Cinecolor, a two-color film stock. Because it only used two base colors to create color, its palate was pretty limited...giving you 'colorish' films. In other words, some colors simply didn't show up well, such as purples and deep blues because the colors used were an orangy-red and a greenish-blue. A few colors came out really well in these films...but often the films looked very orangy or pinkish. While the Turner Classic Movies print looks excellent for Cinecolor after many decades of decomposition, it still is a bit pinkish...and normal skin tones look a bit odd and the white horse in the film looks more like an albino. But believe me...for a Cinecolor film this one looks great. So why did studios use this inferior color filmstock? Money....full color film (such as Three Color Technicolor) were very expensive but the Cinecolor company found a way to produce color (of sorts) for the same price as black & white films.
The story is told in a long flashback by John Wintergreen (Edgar Buchanan), an elderly Cavalry sergeant who is retiring. He tells a young soldier a story about Dan Light and his white stallion.
It seems that long ago, a family was homesteading in the Black Hills of South Dakota. When young Dan was out fishing, a group of renegade Indians arrived at his family's ranch--killing his parents and burning the place to the ground. The only survivor of the attack was a young white horse which managed to escape into the hills.
When Dan arrived back home, he found his parents and buried him. Soon Wintergreen arrived and helps him. He feels sorry for the kid and so he escorts him to a nearby fort where Dan is raised.
Years pass and Dan doesn't join the Cavalry. Instead, he works for them...capturing wild horses and training them. His philosophy wasn't so much breaking the horses but getting them to trust him through love and kindness. However, despite trying very hard to find that white horse, it keeps eluding him and is the leader of a huge herd of wild horses. The rest of the story is about Dan trying to capture and tame the animal....as well as his possibly joining the Cavalry after a lifetime of being a bit of a lone wolf.
The best thing going for this story is that it's NOT a typical western. The usual cliches are lacking and Johnson and Edgar Buchanan both do lovely jobs in the film. While not exactly a must-see film...it's charming and enjoyable.
