The Black Stallion (1979)

I'm falling behind a bit on writing my reviews.  I actually watched this one Tuesday night after dinner on TCM.  Tuesday tends to be a night when nothing is going on, and nothing is on TV, and by that I mean weekly shows.  I saw a while ago but wanted to see it again, as did my mom.  Horse movies always have a beauty too them, which I thoroughly enjoy.

While traveling with his father, young Alec becomes fascinated by a mysterious Arabian stallion that is brought on board and stabled in the ship he is sailing on. When the ship tragically sinks both he and the horse survive only to be stranded on a deserted island. Alec befriends the horse, so when finally rescued both return to his home where they soon meet Henry Dailey, a once successful trainer. Together they begin training The Black to race against the fastest horses in the world.

36/50 Eggs

The classic story of a boy and his horse is beautifully filmed, featuring nice scenes of the boy and the horse frolicking on a deserted island. In the first half of this film, there's hardly any dialog. Yes, film is a visual medium, but looking at pretty pictures can become boring after a while. There's no character development and once the action moves to civilization, it becomes the standard "National Velvet" type of clichéd story, complete with Rooney doing a variation of his role in the earlier film. Ballard's tendency for lingering shots makes this extremely slow-moving. The horse gives a good performance, although, curiously, it is dark brown, not black.