Smoky (1946)

During one of the recent free preview weekends that DirecTV gave us while everybody was under lockdown is the 1946 version of Smoky. It's going to be on StarzEncore Westerns again overnight tonight at 1:44 AM, and again on July 11.

Smoky is a wile horse somewhere in the mountains of Utah that has a reputation, enough that everybody thinks Smoky is some sort of special horse and wants to catch the poor thing. But somehow, Smoky is always able to stay one step ahead of all the humans.

That's until Clint Barkley (Fred MacMurray) shows up. He's a man with a past, one one day he winds up at Julie Richards' (Anne Baxter) latter-day ranch looking for a job. He's vague about his past, leading to the presumption by some that he was a criminal, something that Frank (Bruce Cabot) seems to know more about but isn't letting on.

Anyhow, Clint does get a job, and eventually catches Smoky. And Clint must be some sort of horse whisperer even though they didn't have that phrase back in the day, as Clint is the only one who is able to have any sort of positive effect on Smoky. In fact, the effect is so positive that when Clint falls of Smoky and gets injured, Smoky drags him all the way back to the ranch.

But Frank is a dick and abuses Smoky to the pont that Smoky escapes, getting captured by other people who put Smoky in the rodeo. When Clint recovers he decides to go looking for Smoky....

Smoky is the sort of movie I think you have to be a kid to enjoy, because if you're an adult, you'll probably find it endlessly eye-rolling. It only runs 87 minutes, but it still feels long, mostly because of how little action there really is. There's a whole lot of narration that rather seriously anthopomorphizes Smoky, which I found cringe-inducing.

Worse might be the presence of Burl Ives as ranch hand Willie, who brings the film to a screeching halt every time he breaks out into one of his songs. Once would be once too many, but it happens multiple times.

If you liked the old nature movies that Disney made and TCM would show in the old Treasures from the Disney Vault series, then you might well like Smoky. And if you're a kid, the material is so juvenile and unobjectionable that you probably won't notice how poor the whole thing really is. As for the parents, well I offer my condolences.

Smoky doesn't seem to be on DVD either, so when it's in the StarzEncore Westerns rotation is about the only way you're going to catch it.