My review was written in June 1984 after watching the film on U. S. A. Video cassette.
"A Rare Breed" is a cornball, by-the-numbers story of a racehorse and the pretty teenage girl who loves it. Filmed in early 1981 under the title (and horse's name) "Carnauba" at the Earl Ownesby studios in Shelby, North Carolina (plus some globe-hopping second unit footage), this Jack Cox production has been sitting on the shelf ever since, both theatrically (via New World Pictures) and in home video stores.
Uneventful but apparently true-life story has teen Anne (Tracy Vaccaro) getting a crush on filly Carnaub, bought at auction for her by her dad Jess' (Forrest Tucker) friend Nathan Hill (George Kennedy). She helps rise the horse, but when it is sent to Milan for training, Anne stows away and ultimately is allowed to stay with Carnauba as it wins races in Italy and England.
Carnauba is kidnapped and held for ransom, with the kidnappers later grabbing Anne and Carnauba's handsome trainer Luigi Nelson (Tom Hallick) as well. Not surprisingly, everyone is rescued in the final reel amidst desultory action footage filmed in North Carolina as an unconvincing substitute for the Italian locale.
As family entertainment, pic is dull in the extreme. A certain carelessness is apparent in script and direction, as hen the head kidnapper repeatedly demands 2,000,000 lira in ransom, supposedly $350,000, when 2-billion (or more) is what the filmmakers had in mind.
Cast generally walks through these paper-thin roles, with drama and romance singularly lacking. The pretty heroine introduced here is actress Vaccaro (19 at time of filming) who subsequently shed the overly wholesome routine and became a Playboy Playmate of the month as well as Blake Edwards' dream girl in "Legs" (that was her full screen credit) inj last year's "The Man Who Loved Women".
Perfunctory direction is by David Nelson, who also helmed producer Cox's political thriller "Last Plane Out", and is better known as the actor son of Harriet Hilliard and Ozzie Nelson.
