The Electric Horseman

I watched the greater part of the Electric Horseman which in many respects foreshadows the Horse Whisperer one of thee best of several first class films starring Robert Redford (Butch Cassidy, The Sting, The Great Gatsby, Three Days of Condor, The War We were, The Candidate, All The President’s Men, Brubacker, A Bridge too Far, Out of Africa, Havana, Indecent proposal, Up Close and Personal) He is active politically supporting environmental candidates of either USA major political parties and created the Sundance Film Festival. He has been married twice and has several children and grand children. In others words an all round likeable person on and off the screen by fellow liberals and socialists.

In the Electric Horseman he plays a former Westerner who now in his forties has sold out to a major corporation promoting their product using a thoroughbred horse. When he discovers the animal is being drugged and ill treated he determined to free the creature into the wild. Jane Fonda is a city TV journalist who travels wherever there is a good story and devises a means to engage his interests and travel with him as outlaws alleging stealing a camping trailer while giving messages to her employers where he will release the horse in some secret valley where he knows there is still a wild group.... Do they still exist I wonder? When the corporation realise that the news story is increasing sales they do a join em if they cant beat em and go to the release point with the camera crew only to find Redford is taking the girl across country, when the camper breaks down to another valley ninety miles away. Understandably the two develop a relationship although the nature of this is never fully revealed.

There is a good moment when the horse is released to the wild with the assumption that he will fit in but no happy after for the couple. Redford goes off hitching travel, broke and in search for the free and anonymous life he lived before fame although it is difficult to believe this is possible even in the USA given that Fonda is instantly recognisable regardless of the isolated store she uses to pass on a message. She is tempted to go with him but going back to file her story and then off to Paris on another assignment are lures which she is not prepared to give up. An enjoyable couple of hours but not likely to remembered.