What could have been a decent fantasy comedy starts off on a crooked angle thanks to the obnoxious heroine Terry Moore whose cutting in line in front of Glenn Ford leads to him being accused of pickpocketing her. Her passive-aggressive character doesn't warrant any sympathy from that moment on. So what did they do? Watch the race together! Even then, she goes out of her way to be nasty to him, calling him names and still continuing to stalk him. It's then that she finds the $5 that she thought he stole, and the stage is set to try to are you guys something Jesus in her to root for her. The fact that he allows her to tag along when he leaves the racetrack likes him one of the most idiotic leading romantic heroes I've ever seen, and he ends up getting a ticket for her insisting that he dropped her off in a no-parking zone.
After spending the first few reels of the film abusing Glenn Ford, Moore gets what's coming to her after the death of her uncle James Gleason by going to live with her aging aunt Dame May Whitty whose good-for-nothing offspring are waiting for the old lady to die. Moore calms down long enough to become barely tolerable, determined to get horse October to run in the Kentucky Derby. But for some reason, she begins to believe that Uncle Gleason has taken over the horse's personality, and this ends up with more on trial with the court judging her sanity as one of the heirs to Whitty's estate. This reunite her with Ford who was the psychiatrist and finds himself involved in the case.
You wonder why Glenn Ford accepted such an assignment other than contractual obligation from Columbia. The fantasy is promising but Moore's character is one of those young women so badly written that most people not only men would try to get as far away from her as possible. Characters like her are fine if they are minor in the plot (as comic relief), but she's the lead and you're supposed to like her. Even Margaret O'Brien in her most obnoxious scenes in ml"Meet Me in St. Louis" was more endearing than her. The color photography is pretty, but the magical moments that I was hoping for to make me really engaged in it never happened.
After spending the first few reels of the film abusing Glenn Ford, Moore gets what's coming to her after the death of her uncle James Gleason by going to live with her aging aunt Dame May Whitty whose good-for-nothing offspring are waiting for the old lady to die. Moore calms down long enough to become barely tolerable, determined to get horse October to run in the Kentucky Derby. But for some reason, she begins to believe that Uncle Gleason has taken over the horse's personality, and this ends up with more on trial with the court judging her sanity as one of the heirs to Whitty's estate. This reunite her with Ford who was the psychiatrist and finds himself involved in the case.
You wonder why Glenn Ford accepted such an assignment other than contractual obligation from Columbia. The fantasy is promising but Moore's character is one of those young women so badly written that most people not only men would try to get as far away from her as possible. Characters like her are fine if they are minor in the plot (as comic relief), but she's the lead and you're supposed to like her. Even Margaret O'Brien in her most obnoxious scenes in ml"Meet Me in St. Louis" was more endearing than her. The color photography is pretty, but the magical moments that I was hoping for to make me really engaged in it never happened.