Miracle of the White Stallions | |
---|---|
![]() Theatrical Film Poster | |
Directed by | Arthur Hiller |
Written by | Alois Podhajsky AJ Carothers |
Based on | The Dancing White Horses of Vienna by Alois Podhajsky |
Produced by | Ron Miller Walt Disney |
Starring | Robert Taylor Lilli Palmer |
Cinematography | Günther Anders |
Edited by | Alfred Srp Cotton Warburton |
Music by | Paul J. Smith |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Buena Vista Distribution |
Release date |
|
Running time | 118 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Box office | $2,550,000 (US/ Canada)[1] |
Miracle of the White Stallions is a 1963 American adventure war film released by Walt Disney starring Robert Taylor (playing Alois Podhajsky), Lilli Palmer, and Eddie Albert. It is based on the story of Operation Cowboy which was the evacuation of the Lipizzaner horses from the Spanish Riding School in Vienna during World War II. Major parts of the movie were shot at the Hermesvilla palace in the Lainzer Tiergarten of Vienna, a former hunting area for the Habsburg nobility. The music for the soundtrack was based on the first movement of Franz Schubert's Marche Militaire no 1, D733.[citation needed]
In 1945 Austria, during World War II, Austrian Col. Alois Podhajsky sets out to protect his beloved Lipizzaner horses - purebred white show horses with centuries of tradition as war horses - from starving refugees and the advancing Soviet Army, which might also view the mares and foals being kept at a German-controlled breeding farm in Czechoslovakia as a food source. Hoping to surrender them into safekeeping, Podhajsky seeks out U.S. General George S. Patton, a noted horse fancier.[a] Podhajsky and his team from the Spanish Riding School of Vienna perform for Patton with their Lipizzaner stallions a precision dressage exhibition and the individual "Airs Above the Ground" with the hopes Patton will see the value of horses and help him rescue the mares and foals in Czechoslovakia.