The Black Stallion is probably the third-best movie of a boy and a horse ever made. Come to think of it, I can only think of three...
That's a bit unfair, since numbers two (My Friend Flicka) and this one could really tie for second. They're both OK for kids, but the absolute Numero Uno remains Albert Lamorisse's miniature masterpiece set in the Camargue, Crin Blanc ('White Mane', though I think it was once also retitled The White Stallion).
The Black Stallion simply isn't in that class. But it's an effective bit of film-making for fairly non-critical youngsters - I'd put preferred viewing age at between six and 12.
The scene is a shipwreck. The only survivors are a wild but highly valuable black stallion and a small boy, Alec Ramsay, aged around ten. These two desert-island survivors start saving each other's lives pretty regularly, forging a strong bond. And Alec teaches himself to ride the horse he calls Blackie, and Blackie learns to accept this strange creature atop his back.
The photography in the initial 50-minute sequence of ship, shipwreck and desert-island is absolutely stunning. Forget the story - the images of sun and sea and rocky landscape, and the wild, free-running jet-black horse are transcendental. They make up for the fact that the remaining hour is pretty mundane by comparison, as the movie switches gears from superior to inferior storytelling.
In the remaining hour, Alec and 'his' horse are rescued and returned to his mum in America (his dad went down with the ship). And Alec stumbles across Henry Dailey, a former champion horse trainer, who sets about the task of making Alec into a pretty respectable little jockey, and turning Blackie into a racecourse champion. Missions accomplished; story over.
Henry Dailey is played by veteran actor Mickey Rooney, who in this movie is almost bearable, which is saying a lot for this usually wildly over-playing, frantically frenetic half-pintster.
But the best actor in the movie is the Black Stallion himself. I'm not an equine-lover, but even I can see that this stallion is one handsome hunk of horse-flesh. The intelligence of the horse combined with the skill of his trainer has given us a virtually unbelievable performance, especially in the desert-island sequences. The stallion certainly proves once again W.C. Fields' dictum about kids and animals - this movie gives us both!
So we're given great acting from a horse, coupled with sensational cinematography. It's not anywhere near Crin Blanc calibre, but should please the littlies.
This is a strong anamorphic transfer which does justice to the fine cinematography by Caleb Deschanel. Caleb seems to have fallen by the wayside in recent years - he did chalk up almost a score of movies after this one, including Being There and the beautifully photographed Fly Away Home - but his latest work seems to have been for strange religious-cultists, with a fabulist exercise in sadism entitled The Passion of Christ. How's that for wasting undeniable talent!
Colours on this transfer are vibrant and there is only the very occasional sign of age in the strong contrasts and shadow detail. Although the interior and exterior scenes of the Canadian settings are very different from the Sardinian landscape filmed in the opening scenes, the fine quality is maintained throughout.
The soundscape matches the quality of the video. Shipwreck and storm sequences are delivered with satisfying all-embracing strength, but dialogue is also rendered with satisfactory clarity.
The English layer is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1, reworked from original stereo, while the other language options (German, French, Italian and Spanish) are reasonably good mono presentations.
