A lot of directors have broached childhood:Truffaut,Bunuel,Pialat,Comencini,Loach ,but no one did it as Clarence Brown used to do:his world is a rosy one ,a protected one where any dream can come true if you believe in it.Not realistic?Not that much :take "the yearling" for instance:the young hero's pal's death is not passed over in silence but Jody did tell him and us that somewhere in Heaven there are prairies full of coypus.In "National Velvet" ,the mother ,quoting the Book of Ecclesiastes ,tells her daughter that there's a time for everything,even a time to die.
Colors display something magic,closer to fairy tales than to a realistic story:this small town,with its colorful characters,its school where the teacher loves all of her students whom she's going to miss during the long holiday,its butcher's shop.The heroine's parents own it and their house suffuses with understanding,tenderness and love.The race is ,as far as Velvet is concerned , entirely implausible ,but it's nicely filmed.
A top-notch cast cannot fail to win over the audience:the couple Anne Revere/Donald Crisp are parents every child dreams of;Elizabeth Taylor has always been an underrated actress,to think that about 20 years later,she would be Martha in "who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?"!;Mickey Rooney 's pouty mouth and sullen expression avoid pathos and melodramatic effects.And there's also a young Angela Landsbury,long before "murder she wrote" ,on the threshold of a brilliant career.
It may not appeal to Today's children ,who got used to special effects and action-packed stories.But for the adults who've still got their child's soul,it's a true delight.
