Recently, I came across the 1936 B-Western California Mail on Turner Classic Movies. The late Dick Foran, who had the worst teeth of any of the singing cowboys, has top billing, and there's a thin plot about romantic jealousy, mistaken identity, and the end of the Pony Express.
But the real star is Smoke the Wonder Horse, a grey palomino with an complicated harness who's credited as "himself" and is responsible for all the major plot turns. I was watching the movie in the "background" while doing some divorce paperwork on the couch, but halfway through, Smoke turns on a bad guy who's stolen and mounted him, throws him off, then kills him with his front hooves before galloping off and leaving the man for dead. I was, like, "Whoa! I didn't see that coming!"
Then, in the climactic chase scene, Smoke runs down another black-hat and stomps him until he dies. It's shown in quick-cut edits (because of the Production Code, most likely), back and forth from close-ups of the dying man's frightened, bloodied face to the rearing horse shown from an upward perspective. The blood-curdling neighs and the screams signaled the day was saved. I leapt from the couch and gave the film a standing ovation, much as folks in the theater must have all those years ago!
Finally, I checked the Internet Movie Database so I could find out what other movies Smoke appeared in. He was in 13 other B-Westerns from 1936 through 1941, forgotten films like Empty Holsters and Winners of the West. He's credited as Dick's Horse, Red's Horse, Rod's Horse, Chip's Horse. The grey wonder-steed never found a regular rider, never had the opportunity to be Silver to any Ranger, lone or otherwise.
But Smoke wasn't forgotten. His death-skills were so legendary that he was specially thanked over half a century later during the credits of Lethal Cowboy. Dana Plato is in it. The movie isn't available on DVD and the master tapes are probably lost or destroyed, but Czech IMDB commenter unclehugo describes the action thus.
In the first two minutes of this terrible movie, a long haired, half naked man named Cody is beaten, whipped and shot by Mr. Malone and his right hand Frank (played by Frank Stallone) because he owed them some money. Two Malone's men then take Cody out to the desert and dump him into a hole in the ground. A spirit of an Indian warrior turns up and plays the flute. After a while, Cody gets out of the hole and asks the spirit where he is. The spirit informs him they stand on a sacred burial ground and tells Cody he must stop the evil represented by Malone. Cody isn't too enthusiastic about the idea and says he doesn't want to feel the pain again. The Indian spirit replies: "Without pain, there can be no life."
And without life, there can be no miracles. The very next year, Smoke the Wonder Horse returned from the dead too.
Hustler White was a 1996 Canadian/German independent film about the gay S&M prostitution scene in Los Angeles. This Bruce La Bruce production is not a porno, apparently. IMDb went ahead and listed the film, which inspired a quote from Newsweek: "The difference between art and pornography is the lighting." Here's a rundown, via commenter fuzon:
A campy crime/love story intersects with random vignettes from the lives of various hustlers on Santa Monica boulevard. The protagonist, a pretty and altogether amoral dumbster hustler, robs a hippy trick and steals his car, running over and maiming a skinhead in the process. A prissy writer comes to the city and becomes obsessed with the same hustler. The surrounding vignettes are more outré, with a singing cowboy saddling and riding a young stud...
According to IMDb, the internet's most exhaustively populated and updated movie database, Smoke (I) -- who certainly knew about singing cowboys -- wrote and performed a song for the movie called "Luke's Feet."
And Smoke (I) wasn't finished. IMDb also lists him as the performer for a soundtrack song called "It's On Tonight," featured in 2002's frisky Hugh Grant/Sandra Bullock light fake sex comedy Two Weeks Notice. Because a score was issued instead of a soundtrack (a move that drove the CD's Amazon rating down to two stars), this song is as lost to history as the real truth about Smoke the Wonder Horse.
I'm in the database business, and I know how similar names can make things complicated. From a research perspective, I know how difficult is can be to Google somebody named Joe Smith. We'll probably never know the real story about Smoke's true temperament, what his body count was, if he really did outlast his expected lifespan of 25-30 years, whether he was straight or gay, or if he has another reinvention-slash-comeback left in him. But if you can believe that there is enough magic in this world that a horse can kill somebody in the name of human justice, you know in your heart that absolutely anything is totally and beautifully possible.
