El caballo del traje gris

Making a play on the Gregory Peck/Jennifer Jones film of the Fifties, The Horse With The Grey Flannel Suit is about an advertising man who thinks of a brilliant idea to help his daughter with her horseback riding hobby. A most expensive proposition if one owns one's own horse as Ellen Janov's riding instructor Diane Baker suggests.

The suit is Dean Jones and no one tries to put the horse in a suit. His idea which he pitches to the owner of the advertising firm is to buy a horse and train it as a show horse and have it win the junior riding championship in Washington, DC. Along the way and quite by accident with Dean Jones discovering it rather uncomfortably, they find out that the horse is a jumper which opens all kinds of new possibilities.

Jones and Baker are a nice fit in the leads and Ellen Janov is good as the daughter who does come over like a real kid. Maybe she was just a kid and it wasn't acting. Her career was over shortly and I read with sadness that she died in a fire in the next decade.

This film was also the farewell big screen appearance of Fred Clark who mastered the slow burn as if he understudied Edgar Kennedy. Clark plays Jones's boss who is inpatient to see results in the form of publicity. The horse's name is Aspercel which is a generic tummy pain medication they're trying to sell. I wish the film had more of Morey Amsterdam who plays a rather madcap ad man.

The Horse In The Grey Flannel Suit may yet see a remake from The Magic Kingdom. I can see Jim Carrey for instance in the Dean Jones role. Until then, this will do nicely.