Search - The Horse Without a Head on DVD

Gem of a film

microjoe | 04/09/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"THE STORY: When a famous French mail train is robbed in a rural area, the thieves stash their loot inside an abandoned factory in a poor village, planning to return when the heat dies down. They hide the key inside a wooden horse that the local kids play with. The local children stumble on the key and the cash, and fight to keep the crooks from it. It is hard to say much more without being a spoiler, as it is full of suprises and suspense.

BEHIND THE SCENES & TRIVIA: The movie has comedy, drama, and suspense and is quite a little gem. All of the actors were new to Disney except the young girl, played very well by Pamela Franklin, who appeared again in a Disney theatrical feature 3 years later, "A Tiger Walks". This is one of the most interesting films to come from the Disney Studio. The actors and plot are very good, and the costumes and set are very authentic due to high quality art direction by Michael Stringer. The subtitle for the film is "The 100,000,000 Franc Train Robbery". While the film is set in France, almost all of the production was actually filmed in England. The outdoor set was a French village, built entirely from scratch at the backlot of Pinewood Studios into the largest movie set Britain had ever seen before. Over a million square feet in size, it took 8 weeks to construct, and used 50 tons of concrete. It is completely convincing, and you would never know it is a studio set. The Disney studio used the set again 3 years later, doing an incredible job of redressing it to become a Scottish village for the film, "The Three Lives of Thomasina".

"Horse Without a Head" was originally released theatrically overseas in 1961, but never in the US. This is curious because the production values and quality of the film are much higher than many other projects that Disney distributed to theatres at the time. Two years later it finally aired on the Disney television show, "Wonderful World of Disney", for the first time in two parts beginning on 9/29/63. It re-aired in '64, and '67. It was later serialized on The New Mickey Mouse Club. I recommend you track down this little gem, we enjoyed it immensely.
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Delightful little family film!

Monty Moonlight | TX | 04/14/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"A gang of professional thieves organize a hit on a French trainload of francs and hire a bumbling merchant in a small village to help out. However, a group of poor, local children with a headless toy horse on wheels constantly menaces the irritable merchant, and they quickly complicate the train robbery scheme too. When a key to the stashed loot ends up hidden away in the children's headless riding horse, it becomes a mystery both parties are eager to solve, and the police as well!

Starring the charming Pamela Franklin in a very early role as Marian, a young girl with a talent for training stray dogs, Jean-Pierre Aumont as a kind and nurturing police inspector with an understanding of children growing up without, and Herbert Lom as the imposing criminal mastermind Schiapa, 1963's "The Horse Without a Head" is a pure treat from the Disney Studios, a trustworthy source of gem after gem during the Walt years, some better known than others. This may be one you never have heard of. In the states, it was only released on television, and it sometimes is known with the subtitles of "The Key to the Cache" or "The 100,000,000 Franc Train Robbery". "The Horse Without a Head" is a worthy addition to any DVD collection and an interestingly realistic film from Disney. There is nothing all that fanciful about it, yet it still manages to delight with a pleasing cast and charming story. The DVD case claims to be in enhanced widescreen, but the film actually plays fullscreen after the opening credits. I've been advised that fullscreen is correct though. This is a rather dubious issue with a lot of Disney films. It's uncertain in many cases which were filmed in fullscreen and which in widescreen. Another issue is that the print appears rather dark and gritty and just plain poor quality. Still, it is watchable and the film is excellent. Highly recommended for fans of family films from a bygone era!"