Courage of Black Beauty

John Bryant gives his motherless son, Johnny Crawford, newborn colt Black Beauty. As the boy becomes attached to the animal, rifts open between the distant father and child.

Harold Schuster's movie, based on Anna Sewell's follow-up to her classic novel, has been severely modernized. It is far too simple a story to interest me, and the young actors, with their high-pitched, whiny voices, annoyed me. Nonetheless, it is a well-produced and visually competent effort. If you wish to watch a family-friendly movie with a small child, you could do a lot worse. J. Pat O'Malley has a decent role as the handyman.

Any resemblance between this rather pedestrian film and the Anna Sewall novel is not just coincidental, it's non-existent. Courage Of Black Beauty is about a horse with the name of Black Beauty and that's about it.

The film begins with the birth of the colt and John Bryant the owner plans to give it to his young son Johnny Crawford who's been staying with his grandmother since his mother died. The kid has been quite the handful. Widower Bryant is also at loose ends because of his wife's death, but he's gotten somewhat interested in widow Diane Brewster with her daughter Mimi Gibson who are Bryant's neighbors.

Given just what I've told you I think you have some idea where this film is going. Throw in J. Pat O'Malley the old ranch hand and a German Shepherd dog that Mimi Gibson owns and you've got all the ingredients of a kid's film.

The story Black Beauty which is a children's classic became so because Sewall wrote it from the horse's perspective. Courage Of Black Beauty is definitely not that. It looks like it was shot with a Kodak brownie camera, the production values just aren't there.

The kids may like it, the grownups will thank the producers they only have 78 minutes of film to endure.