Mustang! (1959)

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Weird how things like this got made back then. Truly amateurish in all ways, but created out of a real love for the west, horses and ranch life. I get a kick of films like this, ones that try to be semi-documentary in content as they deliver a thin story. We are shown clips of salmon spawning, wild horses running, old fashion lo-glitz rodeo, Indians doing a tribal dance for show. In-between, there are men punching, flying, riding and shooting, and a really lame love story. Take it for what it's worth, I enjoyed it as a pre-dawn distraction from insomnia. I liked all the western plaid coats and handsome hair, but would've liked more pickup trucks.

Hard to rate this film as it's horrible, in a good way. If you're in to z-grade films that are good for laughs, this should work for you. If you're wanting to watch a vintage western in the traditional sense, stay away.Namely: *None of the characters are remotely likable. *The acting is atrocious and completely wooden. *The script/storyline is juvenile and contains many "WTF?" moments. *The dialogue is completely laughable. *The editing seems to have been done by a drunken chimp. *The film stock looks like someone's old home movies.First of all, the lead character is anti-charismatic, and is basically a psychopath. He horns his way in to the lives of some equally unlikable ranchfolk and mayhem and hilarity ensue. (You may recognize the "hero", Jack Beutel, from the almost as miserable "The Outlaw"). There are many laugh out loud moments: one in which the lead, Gabe Lee, observes a moose and states "that moose reminded me of my boyhood days in Oklahoma"!!! Wow! In another scene he remarks: "an old raccoon wanted no part of it"... in reference to a possum!!There are many reused loops of scenes of horses running, scenery and one particularly funny one in which the heroine rides too close to a cedar tree and a limb nearly knocks her off of her horse. Another great clip shows the hero roping the wild mustang, while closeups show the horse magically wearing a rope halter.There are many edits featuring scenes from other locations, backgrounds and film stock pasted in. There are a couple of great ones in which an obvious stuntMAN stands in for the female lead (although she is very mannish in her own right). And, vocal overdubbing seems to have been done by other actors at times.It's hard to believe that writer director, Tom Gries, went on to actually make some good films (particularly Will Penny, which features his son Jon "Uncle Rico" from Napoleon Dynamite in his first role).I'm a big fan of bad movies. I own every episode of MST3K and have an extensive collection of 50s and 60s sci-fi schlock. This movie rates right up with Plan 9 from Outer Space for it's sheer earnest ineptness and unintentional comic value. I give it a "3" for it's original intention. However, it rates a solid "9" for it's enjoyability as a laugh-out-loud turkey.

Mustang is an unusual western romance movie.While it is not in the league of a Joel McCrea or a John Wayne western,I liked the movie.First off I kept thinking about the color 1950s home movies that I have seen over the years from our family's home movie library.Mustang had that look about it from the color and the way the movie was filmed.I really like the fact that I had never seen any of the actors before in any other motion picture.That was refreshing.That is why I like Canadian movies.I get tired of the mainstream actors of today getting in the way of the story because they are showing off or they are lousy actors.You won't see an overrated George Clooney in this film.Mustang had some breathtaking scenery and the horses were beautiful.If you want to see a pleasant corny western with a little old fashioned romance sprinkled in then check this one out.I have this movie.

About equal parts movie and stock footage, "Mustang!" is probably the only movie I've seen where every character is a creep, even the hero. Would it have hurt Gabe (Jack Buetel) or Nancy (Madalyn Trahey) to crack a smile every now and then? I don't think I'm being too picky when I say that the lead character should have had at least some charisma for the part, while the romantic interest of the story could have shown a hint of charm. Maybe the idea was to convey that the real star of the picture was August Moon, introduced in the opening credits as 'The Mustang'. If I may call him August for short, I'd say he was the only character in the story that didn't have to brood through his lines to create an impression. A quite natural performance too, doing what horses do, mainly running around the countryside and hanging out with the rest of the herd. If I had to guess, he probably could also tell the difference between a raccoon and an opossum, as outdoors-man Gabe certainly couldn't.I didn't start out trying to be so harsh on the film, but this one was just a chore to sit through. Maybe with it's current run on Encore Westerns, someone could get around to fixing up the cast credits on IMDb, as characters Sam and Shortbread were prominently mentioned, while Lou Hollis owned the ranch where the story took place; he's listed as a ranch hand. I already forgot the names of the two airplane shooter guys, but it's not that important, they were only in it for the money.The genre description for this one is Romance/Western, but one could make a pretty good case that it's neither. Only recommended for folks like myself who get up at four in the morning with nothing else to catch on TV.