Do Mesmo Sangue

Black Gold (1947) is a movie I recently watched on HBOMAX. The storyline follows a Mexican man camping in the desert who encounters an Asian orphaned boy and adopts him. The Mexican man teaches him the ways to train a horse and they enter their horses into several horse races hoping for the opportunity to one day have a horse in the Kentucky Derby.

This movie is directed by Phil Karlson (Hell to Eternity) and stars Anthony Quinn (Lawrence of Arabia), Katherine DeMille (The Crusades), Raymond Hatton (In Cold Blood), Kane Richmond (The Lost City) and Jonathan Hale (Strangers on a Train).

The storyline for this movie is very unique, unpredictable and contains fantastic characters. Katherine DeMille Steals the show and delivers a captivating performance. I was impressed by the twists and turns of the storyline and the depiction of how minorities were taken advantage of and how they kept pushing forward. The final Kentucky Derby scene is very well shot.

Overall this is a unique addition to the western genre that contains fantastic characters and a worthwhile storyline. I would score this a 7.5/10 and strongly recommend it.

Even allowing for modern tastes and attitudes changing, this is an awful movie. Anthony Quinn cannot save it and no one else in the movie is even halfway decent. Katherine DeMille as his wife seems to be shooting for "stoic" and landing on "comatose". As was said of an equally terrible film on MST3K, "Someone with attention deficit disorder edited this movie." Things just kind of happen for no apparent reason and scenes fade out like the director got bored (and if he did, fair enough.) Plots are sort of vaguely started, then peter out.

And of course, the only thing this has to do with the actual 1924 Kentucky Derby winner, Black Gold, is the horse has the same name and was owned by an Indian (in reality, a Cherokee named Al Hoots. He was dead before Black Gold won the Derby and that's about all he has in common with "Charley Eagle.") The movie can't even be bothered to get the Derby roses the right color (unless the film stock is SO degraded those were red at some point.) Even the softened-up version of the horse's story told in Marguerite Henry's "Black Gold" is more accurate than this disaster area. This is an excellent example of a case where just because you have some spare money and actors on contract does not mean you have to make a movie.

This movie is certainly not the most representative of the Phil Karlson's career. No trace of Karlson's style here, nothing rough, tough, gritty, as in KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL, nor BROTHERS RICCO or 99 RIVER STREET, or even any other western from him. After all, this one seems to be more a western than a crime drama. But it is a very pleasant, agreeable little oater, involving a horse and a family. So that's a false drama and western destined to the whole family. But I would have never guessed Karlson as the director, why not Don Siegel? No, I would have guessed a Francis D Lyon, or a Ted Tetzlaff.

Davey Chung became an orphan after his father is murdered by white Americans. Charley Eagle (Anthony Quinn) is a native American cowboy who comes upon the boy. Charley adopts the boy and dreams of racing his horse Black Hope.

This is a western trying to be progressive. It is loosely based on a true story although I don't how loose. For this subject, accuracy is not that important. More important is giving Quinn the lead along with an unknown Chinese kid. That is very progressive for its time. Quinn may not be a full blooded Indian, but he probably had some in the mix. The only issue is that I wish he was written smarter. I'm not saying that he's dumb and I know the claim race has a real story behind it. Alright, he could just speak normally instead doing the fake Indian speak.

The story may be about a thoroughbred horse named Black Gold who entered the classic Kentucky Derby, but I found the real story was about an innocent victim named Charley Eagle (Anthony Quinn) whose lack of knowledge of the white man's scrupulous ways to take advantage of the less fortunate was so prevalent in the 1940's and the decades earlier.

In the current decade of the 2020's we still have hundreds of thousands of shady characters who hide behind software and telephone scams to swindle the elderly and new immigrant populations across the world. Back in this 1947 film Charley enters his race horse in a claiming race and when his horse wins easily Charley's initial joy is lost when he learns that his horse has been claimed for a paltry sum by a scrupulous individual who is happy to take the winning horse into his own expanding winning horse stable.

Long before Jed Clampett and the (1962-1971) TV series, The Beverly Hillbillies struck gold, black gold, texas tea, as they called it, the humble but proud farmer Charley Eagle struck oil on the land he owned and unlike the fate that took away his prized racehourse through a claiming race, Charley had a reputable engineer and friend who ensured Charley would reap the financial benefits of his large oil strike on his land.

Yes, there is a dramatic horse race to be run, and yes poor Charley experiences both the highs and lows of winning and losing, but that is how life takes most of us by surprise.

I give Black Gold a passable 5 out of 10 IMDb rating.