GYPSY COLT Original Daybill Movie Poster Donna Corcoran Ward Bond

Gypsy Colt (1954)

Directed by Andrew Marton.

With Donna Corcoran, Ward Bond, Frances Dee, Larry Keating

Lassie comes home (again) but this time as a horse. Eric Knight shouldn't have to had break a sweat writing this "original" with the only difference in the basic plot line (from "Lassie Comes Home") being that a horse, rather than a dog, has to make the arduous journey back to it's young master (a girl rather than a boy) and a locale change from England to the American West. It begins in a drought-stricken region where Frank and Em MacWade dread to tell their young daughter, Meg, that her beloved colt Gypsy has been sold, for financial reasons, as a potential race horse. The horse breaks away from its new owner twice, and is admonished by Meg each time, before the horse is transported 500 miles away to a race track. But Gypsy escapes again and begins his 500-mile trek back to his young mistress. On his trek back, he has encounters with a group of cowboys, a gang of wild motorcyclists and a young Mexican boy, in addition to the terrain problems. Gypsy one-ups Lassie as he also brings a drought-breaking rain with him when he gets back home.