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Plot summary
Tom Tiflin, a boy of about ten, lives on his family's ranch in the coast range mountains, at the western end of California's Salinas Valley. His mother, Alice, was born there. Her father, a pioneer fond of talking about the old West he misses, tells long tales at mealtimes. Fred Tiflin, Tom's father, came from the city and has never settled into ranch life; he tires of the old man's stories. Billy Buck, the family's trusted hand, is a working cowboy, and Tom turns to him for the company and fatherly attention he misses. Fred gives his son a pony, and Tom asks Billy to help him raise and train it for riding. Billy gives him a saddle, and the pony is named Gabilan.
Cast
- Jackie Jacksonas Jackie
- Nino Tempoas Nino
- Tom Sheridanas Dale
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Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Red Pony (1949)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
John Steinbeck wrote the screenplay of his own novella, renaming Jody Tiflin as Tom and his parents Carl and Ruth as Fred and Alice, and softening the story for the film. The film's ending is much happier than the book's, where Billy Buck kills the mare in a caesarean to save the unborn foal.- Aaron Copland's score for the film was arranged and published as an orchestral suite, and he conducted London's New Philharmonia Orchestra in a recording for Columbia Records that Sony later reissued on CD, so the music outgrew the film itself.
