Riders are recruited to star in Disney film epic
A noted horse breeder and pony trekking authority, from Thornhill, was invited to take part in the filming of a Disney motion picture, the Observer of 1959 reported.
Mr Hugh MacGregor of Ballinton, was contracted to supply horses and riders for the entertainment giant’s production of the film based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 literary classic Kidnapped.
The film starred Peter Finch as Alan Breck, James MacArthur as the central character David Balfour and gave a cinema film debut to Peter O’Toole. John Laurie, who played Pte Frazer in Dad’s Army, was also among the cast.
Mr MacGregor was no stranger to such work having already provided horses for Walt Disney’s film Rob Roy and 20th Century Pictures’ Knights of the Round Table.
In an earlier issue of the Observer, Mr MacGregor appealed for riders to take part in Kidnapped and to his surprise more than 40 answered the appeal in 24 hours.
Among the riders selected to play dragoons in King George’s Redcoat
Army were five Stirling farmers named by the Observer as Messrs Armstrong, McCowan, Robb, Moore and Simpson.
They were no strangers to the film world having appeared five years earlier in the Rob Roy picture which was shot on location in the Trossachs.
Joining them in the latest epic were newcomers Mr and Mrs Kay, from Stirling, and James Brown from Killearn.
Kidnapped scenes were shot in Glencoe, around Oban and at Pinewood Studios, London.
Mr MacGregor stayed during filming at the Ballachulish Hotel with the rest of the film production team.