Les plus petits voleurs de chevaux

This is a cute and heartwarming little movie about kids who develop a fantastic heist together, after planning to steal some horses (which are actually just ponies I think) from a mine company's owner who, after deciding to fully mechanize his operation and destroy the horses which are now useless to him and obsolete. It is a great family film but very hard to find here in North America and I eventually tracked down a second hand copy on tape from a television broadcast in I think the 1980s. The movie was originally made in the 1970s if I remember correctly.

The kids are great and the story is fun and realistic and never boring, even though it's a pretty simple plot. The kids will love this one, trust me. Also keep an eye out for Alastair Sim, a really fantastic and under-appreciated actor best known for his role as Scrooge in what I think is the hands down best version of that story ever filmed. I give this one 9/10.

This British film from the Disney Studios is a real sleeper. Although Alastair Sim in what would turn out to be the last theatrically released film of his career is top billed, his is really a supporting role. I doubt most on this side of the pond would know any of the cast members other than Sim, but the real stars are three kids and a Shetland pony, one of many ponies that is used in the Yorkshire coal mines in the beginning years of the last century.

In the mines the little ponies are used to take the coal out but Sim has hired Peter Barkworth as a new manager and he wants to bring in automatic conveyor machines to take the coal out. What happens to the faithful ponies, most likely sent to the slaughterhouse for pet food.

That does not sit well with Barkworth's daughter Chloe Franks and her new friends Andrew Harrison and Benjie Bolgar who are miner's kids. The three steal the ponies. I won't say more but the ponies prove their worth in the end.

This Disney film raises some real adult labor management issues and also issues about the ethical treatment of animals. Among the other issues that are raised is the ponies develop eye trouble and even blindness from exposure to coal dust. It's what happens to the kid's favorite pony. And I guarantee when you see the sacrifice this pony makes on behalf of its human masters you will not have a dry eye for days.

This film should be better known. It's for kids and kids of all ages. And the review is dedicated to one Amber Small, the most dedicated animal activist I know.

What a cracking little film!

I was not expecting this to be so great. 'The Littlest Horse Thieves' is a highly touching and well paced film from 1976, it's one of Disney's best live-action offerings up until this point in time.

The studio have done a crap tonne of animal and children stories in these early decades, some of them work nicely whilst some fall flat. This, however, is excellent. It sucked me right in, I was fully invested in the story of Dave, Alice, Tommy and 'their' ponies - especially the latter's spearhead, Flash. The ending hit me, I can't lie.

Andrew Harrison, Chloe Franks and Benjie Bolgar play the aforementioned human trio - they give what you'd expect from kid actors, but I appreciate their performances. You also have a number of adults involved, with my standouts being Alastair Sim (Harrogate) and Joe Gladwin (Bert).

Other positive parts include the locations and score, both of which are lovely. An outstanding film, one I would highly recommend!

I enjoyed learning about the history of pit ponies. I never even knew they existed until I saw this movie. This movie is rich in history, culture, & customs. The story revolves around 3 kids who live in a mining town, two boys & a girl. The girl is the bosses daughter so she has better clothes & instead of going to school she has a live-in Governess who teaches her. She's not supposed to play with the boys because they're minors' kids. See what I mean by history & culture? There's a cave-in accident & some minors get stuck. They are running out of oxygen. The ponies are able to find them. When the boss decides to replace the ponies with machines the kids break tradition & worked together to keep the ponies from being destroyed. Fascinating stuff & a good ending for the ponies.

Alastair Sim, in his last screen role, tasks the manager of his colliery with making it profitable. The proposed solution is to install machines to move the coal about and retire the pit ponies -- and by 'retire' is meant 'send them to the knackers.' Three of the children in the neighborhood work out a scheme to save them.

There's some inconsistency in the writing in this script, particularly in the way Sim's character behaves; it's surprising given the writers: Burt Kennedy and Rosemary Ann Sisson. I also never saw children who could muck about in coal pits and remain so clean as the three the movie centers on, not to mention pit ponies. Nonetheless, the performances are excellence, and Chloe Franks gives a particularly lively and engaging performance. Good location shooting in Yorkshire adds to the pleasures of the film. All in all, it's a strong Disney movie, with milder humor and some actual fear and sadness under the direction of Charles Jarrott.

Equines of many types were used in the mines. In the US, it was mostly mules, but in Britain, it was ponies, who could move through the confined spaces more easily. the first recorded use of ponies was in Durham about 1750. In 1887 the British government began to regulate their use, and the Pit Ponies' Protection Society (later the National Equine Defense League) was founded in 1907. Ponies' use peaked in 1913, with an estimated 70,000 working underground. Use declined with rising mechanization, and the last known pit pony, "Robbie" retired from a Welsh mine in 1999. The last known living pit pony was Tony who died in 2011 aged 40 at the Newcastle Cat and Dog Shelter.