Yes, the horse is indeed a beautiful black foal, born right in front of young hero Mark Lester and the viewer, sadly orphaned early on when his mother is shot after an accident, being ridden by the vile Patrick Mower. He's the heir to the estate of a kindly wealthy farming landlord who doesn't take kindly to failing farms, taking Black Beauty away from Lester when his father loses his farm.
Mower shows quickly a disrespect for horses, considering them beasts of burden rather than the majestic mammals they are. Later on, he looses Black Beauty in a card game, and the horse ends up in the traveling circus run by Walter Slezak and ridden by his daughter Ursula Glas, and later by Maria Rohm as a wealthy young English woman, the closest character to the female lead of previous 1933 and 1946 versions.
As an independent film with only a loose connection to the original, it's fine, but literary aficionados will be greatly disappointed. Lester isn't in the film all that much, and the horse's journey is more episodic than complete as no single human character dominates the film. Still the photography is nice and the bouncy Lionel Bart score is appealing. Locations from Spain and Ireland are certainly gorgeous to look at.
Some of the circus/carnival scenes are presented in a very juvenile way with tons of inappropriate slapstick. Mower is a vile villain and the actor does a great job of making the viewer hate him. Having watched the earlier versions just months before this, I was satisfied with the fresh viewpoint, but didn't see anything remotely close to the elements of Anna Sewell's book, realizing that the whole point of using a novel's title is adapting it as closely as possible. This really has four parts, giving it an odd narrative that doesn't flow successfully.
Mower shows quickly a disrespect for horses, considering them beasts of burden rather than the majestic mammals they are. Later on, he looses Black Beauty in a card game, and the horse ends up in the traveling circus run by Walter Slezak and ridden by his daughter Ursula Glas, and later by Maria Rohm as a wealthy young English woman, the closest character to the female lead of previous 1933 and 1946 versions.
As an independent film with only a loose connection to the original, it's fine, but literary aficionados will be greatly disappointed. Lester isn't in the film all that much, and the horse's journey is more episodic than complete as no single human character dominates the film. Still the photography is nice and the bouncy Lionel Bart score is appealing. Locations from Spain and Ireland are certainly gorgeous to look at.
Some of the circus/carnival scenes are presented in a very juvenile way with tons of inappropriate slapstick. Mower is a vile villain and the actor does a great job of making the viewer hate him. Having watched the earlier versions just months before this, I was satisfied with the fresh viewpoint, but didn't see anything remotely close to the elements of Anna Sewell's book, realizing that the whole point of using a novel's title is adapting it as closely as possible. This really has four parts, giving it an odd narrative that doesn't flow successfully.