Saddling up an earlier tale of Seabiscuit
The only reason Warner Home Video could have for releasing the 1949 “The Story of Seabiscuit” on DVD ($20) is to cash in on hype surrounding today’s opening of the lavish new “Seabiscuit” movie. It’s certainly not because it’s a good movie. The film’s only saving grace is the inclusion of actual racing footage of the famed horse. Other than that, this ho-hum hokum should have been called “The Fairy Tale of Seabiscuit,” because most of what appears in the movie is far from the truth.
Directed by David Butler, the Technicolor opus finds Barry Fitzgerald, acting as if he wandered in from the set of “Going My Way,” as a famed Irish horse trainer who arrives in Kentucky with his niece Margaret (Shirley Temple in her final film role) to work on a horse farm. The two had left Ireland to escape the memory of the death of her brother, a famous jockey, in a race accident. Fitzgerald’s Shawn O’Hara, it turns out, also is able to see and talk with “little people” and “fairies” who have given him the talent to pick winners. While working in Kentucky, Fitzgerald sets his sights on the yearling Seabiscuit, who he believes has the makings of a champion. But no one else agrees, including handsome jockey Ted (Lon McCallister), who is in love with Margaret.
After illness forces O’Hara to move to California with Margaret, he gets a job at Charles Howard’s horse farm and convinces Howard to buy Seabiscuit.
The film does touch on Seabiscuit’s career-threatening injury, his remarkable recovery and his comeback win at Santa Anita in 1940. Unfortunately, the drippy love story keeps intruding. Temple’s horrid Irish accent doesn’t help. “The Story of Seabiscuit” also abounds with painful racial stereotypes that were prominent in films of the day, including an embarrassing scene at the train station in Kentucky involving O’Hara, Margaret and an African American stable hand.
The DVD also includes the trailer, talent files and a fun vintage short from the 1930s chronicling a day in the operation of a racetrack.
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