SILVER-SCREEN STEEDS

Horse movies that take us on a magical ride...

By Kathleen Murphy
Special to MSN Movies

This weekend, a new version of Mary O'Hara's beloved novel, "My Friend Flicka," hits the big screen. "Flicka" trades Ken McLaughlin (Roddy McDowall), kid-hero of the 1943 film, for mustang-loving Katie (Alison Lohman), rebellious teen and rancher wannabe.

The gender change in "Flicka" is only right -- and long overdue! Far too many horse operas feature boys, boys, boys -- all sweet on big, beautiful stallions and tender mares who, one way or another, turn them into real men. Where are the Velvet Browns ("National Velvet"), budding young women much more likely to fall for magnificent steeds, equine expressions of unbridled sexual energy?

Presumably, when Winston Churchill opined that "there is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man," he wasn't aiming to exclude the fairer sex.

Whether they star a girl or boy, horse stories touch a deep chord in most of us. Traditionally, in art or legend, Bucephalus is the magical beast no one can tame or mount but us. On his back, we are carried away from the everyday to magical realms where we track our wildest dreams and aspirations. We gaze into the horse's great liquid eye, and we believe we spy the soul of a faithful guide and guardian -- or a reflection of ourselves as larger, wiser and more powerful. We are tested and tried symbiotically -- growing up in the shadow of our beloved blacks, roans, bays and paints.

To welcome the second coming of "Flicka," we've singled out our favorites in the race for best horse movie, from mustang to Arabian to brumby to enchanted seahorse. Place your bets!

10. "Hidalgo" (2004)

In this true-life adventure, half-Native American Frank T. Hopkins rides Hidalgo, his beloved "paint" mustang, from Wounded Knee to Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show to the Ocean of Fire, a 3,000-mile Bedouin horserace. Perfectly cast, Viggo Mortensen plays Hopkins as a Western hero in the style of Gary Cooper, taciturn, tough as whipcord, honorable to a fault. Like his hardy, mixed-blood mount, whom he addresses as "Little Brother," Hopkins is naturally noble, an American aristocrat. Shattered by his accidental complicity in the Wounded Knee massacre, the horseman who's lost his spiritual compass travels halfway around the world to find redemption in a hellish Arabian crucible of sun, sandstorm, locusts, the treachery of rivals. Held in total contempt by the proud owners of pure Arabians born of 100-year-old breeding lines, the verging-on-mythic Hidalgo guts it out, carrying Hopkins through the heartbreaking race as well as a detour to rescue a beautiful Bedouin princess. Gorgeous to look at and packed with excitement, "Hidalgo" works authentically adult issues while playing to the horse- and Wild West-loving kid in us all.

9. "Into the West" (1992)

This lovely Irish fairy tale opens on a long curve of moonlit shore where a great white stallion, seemingly born of the silver waves, dances down the beach. Named Tir na nOg (Gaelic for "land of eternal youth," undersea home of the fairyfolk who once ruled Eire), the wise-eyed creature makes its purposeful way to two young brothers (Ciaran Fitzgerald and Ruaidhri Conroy, wonderfully unaffected child actors) languishing in the ugly stone towers of the Dublin projects. Dad (Gabriel Byrne), once king of the "Travelers" (Irish gypsies), now lives on the dole and drowns his grief for his dead wife in drink. When the kids snatch their horse back from a thieving businessman, the trio flees into Ireland's "Wild West," pursued by cops, helicopters, all the adversaries of enchantment. The fateful flight to the "old places" leads questing father and sons out of lives frozen in urban poverty and past loss into natural landscapes -- especially the sea -- where faith and family might be reborn. Never sappy, always grounded in hard reality, "Into the West" delivers charmed moments -- such as the rain-soaked "outlaws" and their magical steed holed up in a warm movie theater where, ironically, they watch "Back to the Future III," in which the time-traveling DeLorean is pursued by Wild West gunslingers!

8. "Seabiscuit" (2003)

Here's a horse story that puts the weight of American history, character and experience on the back of a small, "incorrigible" thoroughbred who, early in life, before his gentle nature was broken, liked nothing so much as to eat and loll in green meadows. A wealthy car-dealer (Jeff Bridges) deep in grief for his dead son; a cowboy horse whisperer (Chris Cooper) who's hit the skids; an oversize jockey (Tobey Maguire) dead-ended in bare-knuckle fights and stable-mucking; a country mired in Depression, economic and emotional -- all take heart and regain self-respect, as Seabiscuit, a horse literally "trained to lose," gets a New Deal, metamorphosing from nonstarter to champion. An impeccable cast, heart-stopping cinematography that literally puts you in the saddle on the racetrack, the irresistible draw of broken men and horses rising to improbable triumph -- "Seabiscuit" covers the ground.