La revanche de Pablito

"The Littlest outlaw" is a simple story told in a straightfoward way. There is very little down time. It's filled will great characters. It has nice location photography. It has some real laughs and a nice heart to it. I should watch this one more often.

Friendly family movie from Walt Disney, filmed entirely on-location in Mexico with a largely Mexican cast and crew, concerns runaway boy and his love for the mistreated horse he has taken with him. Directed by the estimable Roberto Gavaldón, later the filmmaker behind the 1960 cult film "Macario", who was potentially a terrific match for this material. Still, though the movie has its heart in the right place, the Hispanic text has been smoothed over for American audiences, resulting in a coy, somewhat stilted slice of white bread. Andrés Velázquez is pretty good as ten-year old Pablito, and the horse is handled well, yet the film never really generated much excitement (with Disney fans or otherwise). **1/2 from ****

A nice film.

'The Littlest Outlaw' isn't extraordinary, though it has a lot of heart and a story that you can't help but get attached to. I enjoyed the mini adventure feel that this has to it, as we follow Pablito on the run.

Pablito is portrayed by Andrés Velázquez. He isn't anything special, yet I still care for the character thanks to the likeable nature of Velázquez; similar case for Laila Maley's Celita.

Pedro Armendáriz and Rodolfo Acosta are solid in their roles of Torres and Chato, but it's Joseph Calleia who stands out as Padre; becoming a father figure for Pablito, which comes across as charming.

The only negative here is the questionable animal welfare. I know nowadays you can make an animal do things without putting them in danger, I just doubt that was as easy a thing to do back in 1955. I don't see any horror stories online though, so perhaps it's not as bad as it looks at times.

It's a rather short film, one that probably could've been expanded and built upon. Nevertheless, it is still a production that I had an entertaining enough time watching.

Of all the movies Walt Disney personally oversaw before his death, "The Littlest Outlaw" is one of the most obscure. Part of the reason probably is that there are no stars in the cast that anyone outside of Mexico would recognize. But I think the main reason the movie has been forgotten is that while it's not awful or merely bad, it is for the most part slight and forgettable. There are a few pleasures here and there, the best being the padre character Joseph Calleia plays - the role is written to make the character human and sympathetic, and Calleia's performance is winning. And in an age of loud and strident family movies, the gentle feel of the movie is refreshing... at first. Eventually, viewers will realize that the movie is lacking considerable "oompth" when it comes to conflict and challenge for the title character. It doesn't help that the movie is pretty predictable throughout, and there are some plot points (like with the stepfather character) that aren't concluded in a satisfying manner. Despite these problems, I'll say again the movie isn't bad, but you'll likely forget it not long after watching it.

This movie is full of great shots of horses, and stunts with horses. I also thought when I started to watch it that it might have been full of Mexican stereotypes, but the truth is all of the actors were billingual, and this film was shot in both English and Spanish. It was filmed in Mexico, and gives us a glimpse of what that country was like nearly 70 years ago. The story itself is quite simple, a boy bravely and somewhat misguidedly tries to rescue a horse destined to be killed. There are parts in it, which are probably going to uncomfortable for animals lovers, as Bull fighting is a prominent part of the story. Also, I would say it's highly probably that animals were hurt in the filming of the movie, as there were a lot of extreme stunts. The film also has a richness, and by that I mean the literal film it was shot on. I don't think they can make movies look that way nowadays, sadly. But despite the film looking great, I did find it a bit boring, and while it is admirable that they used actual Mexican actors speaking English, I think it would have been easier to follow in Spanish with subtitles.