Misty (1961) on Netflix
Paul Beebe and his sister Maureen live on Chincoteague with their grandparents. Each year the fire department rounds up Assateague's wild ponies, and the two want to own the Phantom.
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- Netflix3.3/5
- IMDb6.6/10430 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
Wild ponies live on Assateague Island off the Virginia coast, and each year the Chincoteague volunteer fire department rounds up part of the herd, swims the animals across the channel and auctions the colts and yearlings to thin the herd and to benefit the fire company. Paul Beebe and his sister Maureen, who have come from Philadelphia to live with Grandpa and Grandma Beebe after their parents died, have befriended an elusive mare on the island, the Phantom. The two want the Phantom for themselves, so they set out to earn what an auction would demand. Their hopes rest on the roundup catching the Phantom, which it never has, and then on outbidding everyone else at the sale.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Misty (1961)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- During the Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962, the year after the film's release, the Beebe family who owned the real Misty brought her inside their home; she soon gave birth to a foal the children named Stormy, prompting Marguerite Henry's 1963 sequel Stormy, Misty's Foal.
- At the film's 1961 premiere on Chincoteague, the real Misty was led down Main Street and her front hoof prints pressed into cement outside the Island Theatre, where they could still be seen as of 2023.
- Most of Assateague Island was protected from development when federal legislation made it the Assateague Island National Seashore in 1965, possibly due in part to the publicity Marguerite Henry's books and the film brought the area.
- The film's story is drawn from Chincoteague's real annual Pony Swim, in which wild ponies from Assateague Island are rounded up and made to swim the channel, and some colts and yearlings are then auctioned to thin the herd and benefit the local volunteer fire department.
