Miracle of the White Stallions (1963) on Netflix
In World War II Austria, Colonel Alois Podhajsky directs Vienna's Spanish Riding School and its Lipizzaner stallions. The advancing Soviet Army threatens to use the prized animals for food.
- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.5/10915 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Plot summary
Colonel Alois Podhajsky is director of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, home to the Lipizzaner stallions that Austria counts among its treasures. During the German occupation, the school's civilian staff is replaced by military personnel. Podhajsky keeps 70 stallions in Vienna and sends 300 Lipizzaners, breeding mares among them, to Hostau in Czechoslovakia, defying orders to keep all the horses at the school. In the war's final days, SS General Streicher orders the staff back to military service and refuses Podhajsky's request to evacuate the stallions from the city, saying that emptying the school would tell Vienna the city is doomed. General Tellheim, who expects defeat, tells Podhajsky to stretch a permit for evacuating treasures such as paintings and statues to cover horses.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Miracle of the White Stallions (1963)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Miracle of the White Stallions is based on Operation Cowboy, the real wartime evacuation of 70 Lipizzaner horses from Vienna's Spanish Riding School and the retrieval of 300 more from a breeding farm in Czechoslovakia, animals the advancing Soviet Army could have used for food.
- Major portions of the film were shot at Hermesvilla, a palace in Vienna's Lainzer Tiergarten that had once been a hunting area for the Habsburg nobility.
