The Long Ride

A US pilot bales out over Hungary during World War II, and the Resistance helps him to flee to freedom across the Yugoslavian border. There being no cars, and with the Germans watching the trains, our hero (Savage) escapes on horseback, and The Long Ride becomes an excuse for lavish tracking and helicopter shots over the great Hortobagy plain. Not a hugely expensive picture, but co-production with Hollywood bought Gábor chopper shots and an indifferent American star. It also saddled him with a compromised script - just to keep the ideology straight, the pilot first considers fleeing East to join the advancing Red Army - and a sentimental ending whereby the plucky peasant lad who helps the hero to flee dies on reaching the border.