Ride a Wild Pony

A Disney film set in Australia with two kids (one rich, paralysed and pampered, the other poor, gap-toothed and cheeky) fighting for the ownership of a wild white pony. Sounds irredeemably yucky? Well, you're wrong - the pony gets very few close-ups, and the script makes a point of presenting the paralysed girl as a real toffee-nosed stinker, thus giving a welcome acerbic tinge to the drama. Jack Cardiff's photography is radiantly crisp, and all the actors, young or old, seem to believe in what they're doing. Even the moral homilies ('If you keep running away from the big people, you just make yourself small') ring true. The only blight is provided by Chaffey's mannered direction, liable to induce vertigo or a permanent squint.