A young Elizabeth Taylor starred in “National Velvet,” where she plays a 14-year-old girl who wins a horse in a raffle and decides to train him for Britain’s Grand National Steeplechase. She is helped in the task by a young drifter portrayed by Mickey Rooney. Co-stars include Donald Crisp, Angela Lansbury, Anne Revere, Reginald Owen, Juanita Quigley, Jackie Jenkins, and Arthur Treacher.
Director Clarence Brown (“The Yearling” 1946) ensured outstanding production values as well as working with the variety of actors to achieve maximum performances in what seems like an almost perfect motion picture. The outstanding screenplay by Helen Deutsch was adapted from the 1935 novel by Enid Bagnold.
Location filming in Technicolor in Pebble Beach, California, served as a good substitute for England; marvelous cinematography by Leonard Smith. The musical score by Herbert Stothart was indispensable to the success of this picture. It won two Oscars, for Best Film Editing (Robert J. Kern) and Best Supporting Actress (Anne Revere). “National Velvet” was a hit at the war-time box office for producer Pandro S. Berman and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
National Velvet (1944)
cinema
My Review
A young Elizabeth Taylor starred in “National Velvet,” where she plays a 14-year-old girl who wins a horse in a raffle and decides to train him for Britain’s Grand National Steeplechase. She is helped in the task by a young drifter portrayed by Mickey Rooney. Co-stars include Donald Crisp, Angela Lansbury, Anne Revere, Reginald Owen, Juanita Quigley, Jackie Jenkins, and Arthur Treacher.
Director Clarence Brown (“The Yearling” 1946) ensured outstanding production values as well as working with the variety of actors to achieve maximum performances in what seems like an almost perfect motion picture. The outstanding screenplay by Helen Deutsch was adapted from the 1935 novel by Enid Bagnold.
Location filming in Technicolor in Pebble Beach, California, served as a good substitute for England; marvelous cinematography by Leonard Smith. The musical score by Herbert Stothart was indispensable to the success of this picture. It won two Oscars, for Best Film Editing (Robert J. Kern) and Best Supporting Actress (Anne Revere). “National Velvet” was a hit at the war-time box office for producer Pandro S. Berman and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.