Reeling Backward: "National Velvet" (1944)

My biggest complaint about family films is that they usually aren't for the entire family. They're generally pitched at a child's level of comprehension, and adults find the movie predictable or silly. "Tooth Fairy" is a recent example.

"National Velvet" is a perfect example of a film that anyone of any age can enjoy. It's full of joy and youthful enthusiasm and boundless optimism. It's about a humble girl who has a dream, and perseveres in pursuing it, believing firmly when all the naysayers dismiss her, and who wins all the glory in the end.

How can a story about a girl named Velvet Brown who rides her horse in the Grand National race be compelling, when we know she's going to win? Mostly, with strong supporting characters, expertly played.

In 1944, Mickey Rooney was one of the biggest movie stars in the world, despite standing not much above five feet tall. He plays Mi Taylor, a ne'er-do-well former jockey who stumbles across the Brown family in a tiny English hamlet. His deceased father had Mrs. Brown's name in a memo book, but Mi doesn't know why. He traipses the land doing a bandy-legged jig, whistling a rakish tune and not a care in the world.

He intends to use his dad's connection to rob the Browns blind, and in fact finds where Mrs. Brown hides her savings in a coffee tin. But after hearing Velvet's unabashed, innocent belief in him, he relents and replaces the money before anyone was the wiser. Velvet convinces Mr. Brown to hire him in his shop.

Mrs. Brown is played by Anne Revere, who won an Oscar for her role. Wise and serene, she once was famous herself for becoming the first woman to swim the Channel. But while proud of her accomplishment, she recognizes it's in her past, and belongs there, fondly remembered but not obsessed over.

Mr. Brown (Donald Crisp) is the town butcher, constantly harping on the price of everything without recognizing its value. He sees Velvet's goal of entering her horse in the Grand Nationals as sheer folly, good money after bad. But he's smart enough to know that Mrs. Brown is smarter than he, and listens to her admonishments that everyone should have the right to pursue folly once in their life.

I really adored the relationship between the Browns, everything down to the fact that they address each other as "Mrs. Brown" and "Mr. Brown." I don't think they ever share anything more demonstrative than a pat on the arm, but their love for each other practically radiates off the screen. As someone who's soon to become a parent himself, I took special note of how they behave a certain way when the children are around, and the tone of their conversation changes when they're alone.

A teenage Angela Lansbury has a juicy little role as Velvet's older sister, who's something of the town tart. It's something to behold her as a young sexpot.

Oh yes, the girl and her horse.

It was Elizabeth Taylor's breakout role, all of 12 when she made the film. Still a cute kid and not the great beauty she would become, Taylor just seems to glow whenever Velvet is talking about horses. The family owns only an old nag they use for delivering meat, but a chance to drive the cart is still sheer heaven for her.

Then one day she meets The Pie, and it's love at first sight.

In the tradition of films of this sort, The Pie is a wild creature whose rebellious nature immediately quiets down once the one who loves him climbs on his back. Velvet wins him in a raffle when his owner grows tired of The Pie constantly leaping his pen, wreaking havoc. Mi spends months teaching Velvet how to jump The Pie over every hedge in the countryside in preparation for the daunting leaps at the Grand Nationals.

They're supposed to find a jockey, but of course the audience knows Velvet is destined to ride The Pie in the race herself. Mi cuts her hair and claims she's a Latvian youngster who speaks no English. Dressed in her bright purple-and-yellow jockey livery -- the film's colors really pop off the screen -- she looks so dainty and fragile.

The race is quite thrilling as staged by director Clarence Brown. Steeplechase is a hard sport to watch, since the threat of serious injury, or even death to riders and steeds is quite real. Amazingly, Taylor -- who was an accomplished young rider -- performed most of her stunts herself.

With its mix of a gutsy pint-sized heroine, an array of engaging supporting performances and the invigorating racing itself, "National Velvet" is everything a family film should be.

4 stars out of four

The Bridges at Toko-Ri

The Korean War has been called "the forgotten war," and the 1955 film "The Bridges at Toko-Ri" is an early look at the disillusionment of the men who fought it.

As I've discovered more war pictures from the 1940s and '50s, I've been struck by how anti-war -- and often downright cynical -- they can be. Most people consider the Golden Age of cinema an era of unquestioning patriotism when it came to movies about armed conflict. But in point of fact, filmmakers were quite capable of delivering harsh, sobering glimpses of war.

William Holden plays Harry Brubaker, a Navy lieutenant pilot who as the story opens is forced to ditch his jet in the ocean when he runs out of fuel returning from a mission. He nearly dies in the frozen sea, but is saved by the plucky rescue helicopter pilot Mike Forney, memorably played by Mickey Rooney.

We soon learn that -- like the Jimmy Stewart character in "Strategic Air Command" -- Brubaker was a reservist called back up to active duty, and he's none too thrilled about it. He had a successful law practice going, a wife (Grace Kelly) and two young daughters. Now he's risking his neck doing bomb runs over a country most Americans back home couldn't find on a globe.

Fredric March has a great role as the grizzled old Navy admiral who brutally assesses his men's grit and abilities while also extending a paternal hand to Brubaker. He sees much of his dead son in the brash young pilot, and even looks the other way when Brubaker's wife brings his family to Japan to see him, despite regulations to the contrary.

The film is based on a book by James Michener, based on his real experiences with an air command unit in 1951-52. The bridges of Toko-Ri are fictitious, but based on some real key bridges in the North Korean mountains that American air forces badly wanted to destroy.

The flight scenes are thrilling and realistic -- the film won an Academy Award for special effects -- but director Mark Robson doesn't romanticize the notion of combat or fetishize all the military gear. It's simply the backdrop to a great story about warriors that is less concerned with the war in which they find themselves.

There are numerous references to the war being a wasted effort, and something of which the Americans safe at home are barely even cognizant -- pretty radical stuff in late 1953 and early 1954, when the film was made.

I rather liked the Mike character, and how Rooney played him. He's an impish little hot-headed Irishman, who's an ace behind the yoke of a chopper but hell on wheels on land. He gets thrown in the clink when he learns his Japanese girl fell for another sailor while he was at sea, resulting in a huge brawl. Brubaker bails him out, and Mike eventually makes it back onto the ship, but not before nearly getting thrown in jail twice more.

Mike wears a bright green tophat and scarf while he's piloting his helicopter, despite the consternation of the captain. Mike is an interesting character, who flourishes in the tightly regimented society of the Navy, despite being a born hellraiser.

Brubaker becomes unnerved when a second low-fuel scenario nearly ends with him ramming his plane into a huge crane on the landing deck of his "flat top" -- aircraft carrier. He starts to lose his nerve as the big Toko-Ri mission approaches. But he does OK in the end.

The film ends with Brubaker and Mike dying in a muddy irrigation ditch in a Korean field. Brubaker completed his mission but took flak damage, and had to crash-land. Mike comes to rescue him but his helicopter is damaged.

"The wrong war in the wrong place, and that's the one you're stuck with," Brubaker intones just before perishing. It's a grim, unglamorous portrait of war, and one well worth catching.

3 stars