Tonight's Movie: Courage of Black Beauty (1957) - A ClassicFlix DVD Review

Today I returned to the two-film The Black Beauty Collection available from ClassicFlix and watched COURAGE OF BLACK BEAUTY (1957).

The set is #14 in the ClassicFlix Silver Series. I previously reviewed the other film in the set, BLACK BEAUTY (1946) starring Mona Freeman, which I enjoyed.

Like the 1946 film, COURAGE OF BLACK BEAUTY contains an opening acknowledgement of the BLACK BEAUTY novel by Anna Sewell. Also like the 1946 film, COURAGE OF BLACK BEAUTY bears no relationship to the original story other than in the most tangential way.

The COURAGE OF BLACK BEAUTY screenplay was written by Steve Fisher, who is more closely associated with film noir. His past work included the novel which inspired I WAKE UP SCREAMING (1941) and the screenplays for films including LADY IN THE LAKE (1947) and THE HUNTED (1948).

Johnny Crawford, who began his run as Mark McCain on TV's THE RIFLEMAN the following year, plays young Bobby Adams. Bobby has been with his grandmother on an extended visit, but as the movie opens he is returning to live with his widowed father Sam (John Bryant).

Sam is abrupt and ill at ease dealing with Bobby, but he wants to make him happy and gifts him with a brand-new colt, which Bobby calls Black Beauty.

Over the course of the ensuing months Bobby works to train Black Beauty. There are ups and downs, with both Bobby and the horse suffering calamities at various times, but gradually horse, boy, and father all become closer to one another.

There really isn't much to this 74-minute film, which has a fairly thin story.  (Note that the DVD running time is four minutes shorter than the time listed at IMDb.) The story is slow-moving -- the sequence where the colt is born seems to go on forever -- and it's rather repetitive (boy injured, horse injured). And there's a character (played by Ziva Rodann) who shows up near the end out of the blue for almost no discernible reason.

Still, I rather enjoyed this little movie, shot in pretty autumnal tones by John W. Boyle. The film is almost more a series of vignettes, such as the children watching shoes made for Black Beauty or enjoying a Halloween party. The latter scene is a feast for the eyes in terms of '50s kitchenware and holiday decorations!

I was unfamiliar with Bryant, who gives a rather one-note performance, but the rest of the players are very good. They include favorite Diane Brewster (Samantha Crawford of MAVERICK) as a neighbor and child actress Mimi Gibson (HOUSEBOAT) as her daughter. Russell Johnson (GILLIGAN'S ISLAND) and J. Pat O'Malley are also on hand offering Sam help and advice with boy and horse.

In the end, while it's admittedly not a particularly good film, I found enough to make watching it worthwhile -- I was really taken with the visuals in that Halloween scene, shown here -- and the film having Crawford and Gibson's characters front and center may give it appeal for young viewers.

I'm always glad when a hard-to-find film such as this sees the light of day on DVD so I can check it out for myself. ClassicFlix has done a great job making a number of rare films available over the last few years. The DVD print of this movie is quite good.

COURAGE OF BLACK BEAUTY was directed by Harold D. Schuster and produced by Maureen O'Hara's brother Charles Fitzsimons. It was originally distributed by 20th Century-Fox.

A related post from 2014: Meeting Johnny Crawford at the Lone Pine Film Festival.

Thanks to ClassicFlix for providing a review copy of this DVD.

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