National Velvet

National Velvet (1945)

Simple story of a boy... a girl... and a horse! Set to the thunder of the Grand National Steeplechase!

Mi Taylor is a young wanderer and opportunist who finds himself in the quiet English countryside home of the Brown family. The youngest daughter, Velvet, has a passion for horses and when she wins the spirited steed Pie in a town lottery, Mi is encouraged to train the horse.

Date of release
1945-01-26
TMDB
7.2 / 10 (128)
Runtime
2h 3m
Genres
Drama, Family
Director
Clarence Brown

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: National Velvet
  • Filmed in: California and Santa Monica
  • Awards: 2 · Nominations: 5. Including: Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress; Academy Award for Best Film Editing

National Velvet is a 1944 American Technicolor sports film directed by Clarence Brown and based on the 1935 novel of the same name by Enid Bagnold, about a young English girl who rides a racehorse. It stars Mickey Rooney, Donald Crisp, Angela Lansbury, Anne Revere, Reginald Owen, and an adolescent Elizabeth Taylor.

Production notes

An 18-year-old Gene Tierney, who was then appearing on Broadway, was offered the role of Velvet Brown in 1939. Production was delayed, however, so Tierney returned to Broadway. Much of the film was shot in Pebble Beach, California, with the most-scenic views on the Pebble Beach Golf Links (with golf holes visible in the background). Elizabeth Taylor was given "The Pie" as a birthday gift after filming was over.

This was the first of two films casting Elizabeth Taylor and Anne Revere. The other film, A Place in the Sun, featured Revere as the mother of Taylor's love interest, played by Montgomery Clift. In that film, however, the two actresses never shared the screen with each other in any scene.

Mickey Rooney's scenes were shot first in one month allotted by the U.S. Army before Rooney was inducted in June 1944.

Mickey Rooney played a similar role in the film The Black Stallion (1979).

The screenplay was written by Helen Deutsch. The film differs from the book in a number of respects. For example, Velvet's horse in the book is a piebald, and thus is given the name "The Piebald" or "The Pie" for short. In the movie, Pie is a chestnut, and another explanation for his name was given.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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