Kentucky is most famous for including horseracing footage in Technicolor, and for giving Walter Brennan his second Academy Award for Supporting Actor. I can only imagine how puzzled the other nominees in that category were when his name was called, and I can only imagine how many times Lionel Barrymore shook his head. Lionel was a crotchety old man before anyone had even heard of Walter Brennan-but he didn't get an Oscar for it! Walter Brennan's crotchety old man isn't even convincing. He just hunches his shoulder and shouts while wearing a white wig. The role could have been far more emotional, and he could have stolen the show, but he doesn't put anything into it, which is surprising, given what he put into his breakthrough starring role that put him on the map and won him his first Oscar, in Come and Get It.
The person who steals the show is the person who plays Walter Brennan as a little boy: Bobs Watson. He's only in the beginning scene, but it sets the scene for what should have been a very good rest of the movie. In the Civil War, Union soldiers steal the Southern family's horses, and Bobs chases after them, sobbing his heart out. He's laid the groundwork and turned the audience into putty. As an old man, he owns racehorses and forbids his granddaughter, Loretta Young, from falling in love with the grandson of the man who took stole the horses in the beginning of the movie. Bobs Watson has such a memorable, heart-melting face; wouldn't it have been cute, not to mention effective, if Walter Brennan incorporated his little pout into his performance? People have the same expressions from childhood to elderhood, but there's no clue in this movie that they're playing the same person. Walter should have pouted or threatened tears when he didn't get his way, and the audience would have been in the palm of his hand.
Unless you love horseracing movies and want to see footage of real racehorses, you don't have to rent this one. It could have been so much better.
The person who steals the show is the person who plays Walter Brennan as a little boy: Bobs Watson. He's only in the beginning scene, but it sets the scene for what should have been a very good rest of the movie. In the Civil War, Union soldiers steal the Southern family's horses, and Bobs chases after them, sobbing his heart out. He's laid the groundwork and turned the audience into putty. As an old man, he owns racehorses and forbids his granddaughter, Loretta Young, from falling in love with the grandson of the man who took stole the horses in the beginning of the movie. Bobs Watson has such a memorable, heart-melting face; wouldn't it have been cute, not to mention effective, if Walter Brennan incorporated his little pout into his performance? People have the same expressions from childhood to elderhood, but there's no clue in this movie that they're playing the same person. Walter should have pouted or threatened tears when he didn't get his way, and the audience would have been in the palm of his hand.
Unless you love horseracing movies and want to see footage of real racehorses, you don't have to rent this one. It could have been so much better.