Calling the murder witness Brilliant: The Blocked Trail

Brilliant the Horse in "The Blocked Trail" 1943

Rarely does the murder-mystery film from the 1930’s to 1940’s have a domestic animal like a dog or cat sitting idly by when its owner becomes a murder victim. What is even more rare, is when the animal happens to be a horse – a smart, seeing-eye horse, who also happens to be a miniature horse. Described in “The Blocked Trail” (1943) as a three-foot high dwarf Mustang, Brilliant is owned by an elderly man by the last name of Martin (Walter Soderling), who lives on the outskirts of a small western town on a piece of land that has a gold. With the mine in claim and a lawyer by the name of Frank Nolan (Charles Miller) to handle the old man’s property after he dies, Martin is capable of taking care of himself, even when he starts to lose his sight. Living in Martin’s cabin, Brilliant is trained to be his eyes, a product of the Clever Hans Effect (Clever Hans was an Orlove Trotter horse owned and trained by Wilhelm von Osten to do math, tell time, read, and spell during the first decade of the twentieth century). Smarter than the average horse, Brilliant takes the viewer on a thrill-filled western adventure, wondering who committed the murder of an elderly man.

Jimmie Dodd with Tom Tyler

The twilight setting of the Martin’s murder arouses intrigue for the audience. A tall male figure clad in all black, including a wide brimmed hat, springs out of the bushes with a gun in hand, attempts to take Martin by surprise. But Martin is ready to take on the stranger, with his rifle in hand and Brilliant by his side. The two men finally wind up in a brawl, the stranger’s face obscured by the camera at all times. Martin gets plugged by the man attempting to vanquish his life, but with the aid of Brilliant, gets ahold of the murder weapon and drops it into her saddlebag. Managing to evade the clutches of the murderer, Brilliant stays by her master until his last breath, then takes off, in hopes of finding someone who might help her. In luck, she encounters The Three Mesquiteers: Stoney Brooke, Tucson Smith, and Lullaby Joslin (Tom Tyler, Bob Steele, Jimmie Dodd) when her rein is caught on a bush and she is unable to free herself. Lullaby untangles Brilliant’s rein, and of the three friends, she immediately develops an affinity for him. Brilliant licks Stoney’s hand upon meeting him, and the men discuss the finding of the horse who a number of people have been looking for, including Martin’s niece Ann Martin (Helen Deverell), the sole heir to Brilliant and the gold mine. Seemingly delighted to meet new friends, Brilliant’s instinct tells her these are good men who will help her track down her master’s murderer, even when they get framed for the murder themselves due to circumstantial evidence: possession of the murder weapon removed from Brilliant’s saddlebag.

Along with The Three Mesquiteers, Brilliant is escorted into town by the sheriff (Hal Price) and his men as being as “evidence” but there is the underlying assumption that she may in fact know who murdered her master. Everyone knew about old man Martin and how smart his seeing-eye horse is. The fact that he had a horse who was smart was no secret to anyone in town, not to the murderer himself, who took special precautions at having Brilliant shuffled away from the stable in town where she was placed, right across from the jail. As suspects, The Three Mesquiteers test Brilliant’s smarts from behind bars with simple math problems, even proving to the sheriff that they are innocent, Brilliant’s identifying the three men as not the murderers of her master. True to form, as Lullaby states, “She knows everything” – and if a smart horse could talk, she could accurately describe the events that transpired the night Martin was murdered – from the time the stage driver Freddy (George J Lewis) dropped off a package of books in Braille to Martin, to when Martin took Brilliant out for a walk, when they ran into the mysterious figure who shot the old man. What is notable is Brilliant’s attitude towards the people she knows, her overall response to them, with the exception of one person: the lawyer Nolan, and with good reason.  Nobody else has an inkling as to any personal vested interest Nolan has in Martin’s property, which is solely for the gold mine. Caught up in the mine situation, Freddy and The Three Mesquiteers are freed from certain destruction by Brilliant, who saves the day and brings the murderer to justice.

Definitely one of the more entertaining Three Mesquiteers westerns made by Republic Pictures starring Tom Tyler as Stoney Brooke, Brilliant figures into the film’s title in a subtle manner – the trail to solving the murder mystery is being blocked by the murderer through her removal, who at times escapes the henchmen and keeps making her way back to The Three Mesquiteers, while being pulled in a third direction, that of her new owner, Ann Martin. The film’s subplot revolves around a Native American medicine man, Chief Plenty Harvest and his wife (Earle Hodgins and Ellen Lowe) who try to swindle the Three Mesquiteers every chance he gets. Unusual for its time period, the film theme of animal-as-murder-witness was repeated in movies like “Shadow of the Cat” (1961, UK) which stars Andre Morrell and Barbara Shelley, and more recently, “Turner and Hooch” (1989), starring Tom Hanks. Directed by Elmer Clifton and written by John K. Butler and Jacquin Frank, “The Blocked Trail” also has support from Kermit Maynard, the brother of western star Ken Maynard. As the real hero and star of “The Blocked Trail”, Brilliant may have you looking at your pets and wondering if they could be as smart in witnessing and solving a murder mystery.