The Last of the War Horses

Miracle of the White Stallions. "My kingdom for a horse!" cried Richard III at Bosworth Field. He probably meant a Spanish horse. Some of the finest war horses of the Renaissance were derived from a mixture of Spanish and Arab stock, and in 1565 Maximilian II of Austria made military news of some magnitude when he imported a string of steel-white Spanish steeds to his estate at Lipizza. In 1735 the Spanish Riding School was established in Vienna to train the finest Lipizzan stallions in the classic battle tactics devised by a French riding master named Antoine Pluvinel. Bonapartes and Habsburgs came and went. The horse itself became obsolete as a weapon of war. But in its great white temple, the great white breed, serving like a race of priests the cult of equitation, continued serenely in its rituals and would so continue, the Viennese assumed, until the Danube itself had dried to dust.

Then came Hitler. By 1945, when this Walt Disney picture begins, Allied bombs are bursting in the courtyard of the academy and Russian columns are rushing toward Vienna. The Lipizzan stallions stand in mortal peril, but the Fuehrer refuses to let them leave the city--the move might be interpreted as an admission of defeat. Colonel Alois Podhajsky (Robert Taylor), commandant of the academy, rebelliously horsenaps his own herd, ships it to safety in an isolated village. So much for the stallions, but what about the Lipizzan mares? They are prancing through Bohemia like a bunch of damn foals, and the Russians are sure to rustle them unless General Patton rapidly develops some horse sense.

He does, of course, and in the grand finale the stallions return to Vienna for a stunning display of dressage. Each of these magnificent animals is an equine Nijinsky, and each negotiates with elegance and passion the figures of the classical school. Producer Disney declares categorically: "These horses are human.'' They are at any rate more intelligent than most of the people connected with his picture. Any donkey could have written the script ("These horses are very unique in the world"). The supporting players (Lilli Palmer. Curt Jurgens. Eddie Albert) are obviously off their feed. And Actor Taylor--well, frankly, a horse that acts the way he does would instantly be shipped to the glue factory.

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