Audience Member
I can't find this movie anywhere, but I'm petty mindblown by the fact that this children's movie was written by Harry Alan Towers, a man who not only was part of an alleged vice ring with Stephen Ward, Peter Lawford and the Soviet Union, but also the producer and writer of severall Jess Franco movies including 99 Women, The Girl From Rio and Venus In Furs.
The husband of Maria Rohm may not be the first person I'd choose to write a kid movie about horses, but then again, I'd probably not think to hire William A. Levey, who made Wam Bam Thank You Spaceman, Blackenstein and Skatetown U.S.A. either.
Then again, if only for the sake of having several obsessions of mine in the cast, I wonder if this movie was made just for me. I mean. Murray Langsdon and Susan George are in this.
Barney Ingram's (Mickey Rooney) prize stallion Cloverdale III has been stolen by creditor Emmett Fallon, but the horse runs away and two kids end up with it and name it Lightning. Also, the girl is going blind like a Melvins song. Or maybe not. I don't know, any time Mickey Rooney shows up I'm reminded how much he hated Silent Night, Deadly Night and then ended up starring in Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/06/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Drunk farm hand has an accident and loses a prized white stallion named Cloverdale. Not the usual fare from Cannon. I did find it odd that the stepfather in this film kept coming down hard on the teen despite the fact she showed what most parents hope for their kids - having them find something they have a passion for. At least he got on board late. One can assume that the producers of the Black Beauty tv series saw something they liked in the way Mickey Rooney interacted with horses.
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
02/13/23
Full Review
Audience Member
A rare family outing for The Cannon Group has precocious teenager transforming a runaway horse into a champion show jumper. Predictable fare with added tension in the girl needing to win to afford an expensive surgery to avert blindness. In a case of art mirroring reality, Mickey Rooney appears with a wife much younger.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/24/23
Full Review
Audience Member
The absolute worst horse movie I have ever seen. A horse is stolen by a drunken groom, that is an allegedly valuable white stallion, not a race horse, but the character played by Mickey Rooney is a gambler, no explanation for why he even had this allegedly valuable horse. When the thief wrecks his truck and the horse escapes the trailer without a scratch, a school bus driver stops and the kids on the bus, all old teenagers save the drunken driver and take him to the hospital, and for some reason, a girl stays behind and next thing you know she owns 15 percent of the stolen horse and her stepfather will not let her keep it at his property, so she takes it to the boarding stable down the road, turns the reins over to someone who owns the place and walks off, leaving the horse with her dead father's saddle on it. The movie has no redeeming social value. The horses were changed in the middle of jumping scenes at the horse shows where out of nowhere, this nobody with an unknown horse is supposed to beat every one else in the jumping rounds, but the horse is never the same horse from one shot to the next.One time the white horse with unbraided mane, next shot, a grey horse with braided mane and completely different tack. Throughout the movie it is obvious the very bad actress, Isabel Lorca, who is also a very bad rider, is replaced by a totally different rider, on a totally different horse, with completely different tack. I understand that Mickey Rooney, since the Black Stallion,and movies of his youth has always been associated with horses and needed the money, but the writing, the acting, and the directing and continuity were totally bad, and this is not even a movie I would show to children taking riding lessons, as the entire cast is incompetent, the entire movie is trash, and the most interesting thing about the movie is that there is no sympathy generated for anyone except the poor horse that had to endure all the bad riding, and the abuse of the second set of thieves that steal the horse for the second time. The worst acting I have ever seen, the worst writing, and the worst directing. It is just amazing that people put money into making this film. Of course, this was in 1984, and no movie that bad would be made today, but it was very horrible, atrocious, and ghastly bad.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
01/13/23
Full Review
Audience Member
I saw this on television when I was ten or eleven, and it made me sad inside.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/18/23
Full Review
Audience Member
The girl's fate is kind of tragic, but still this movie is really BAD. It's incomplete and too chessy. Lighting is gorgeous though.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/16/23
Full Review
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