Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

this movie played twice on THIStv, a great channel.Kentucky is one of my favorites. I am teaching a Southern History course, and I use the "Southern" any movie about the South to talk about how Hollywood viewed blacks, the different classes of southern society. A great movie similar to this that also starred Walter Brennan is Maryland Fox 1940 Hattie McDaniel is in this one It takes place on a large estate in Maryland, and has to do with steeplechase and fox-hunting. Both of these movies are fun a bit dated with the racial views, but in the context of a good story,a dn history well worth watching. Where can I get a copy or view online Maryland? also please write thistv and let them know you like movies such as Kentucky,Maryland They must have purchased a cache of 20thCenturyFox films, they showed the 1953 Titanic on Sunday. Also anyone who has done research on the Southern as a genre please let me know I am planning to do an aritcle.

Terrific film dealing with the horse racing scene in Kentucky.We are taken from the beginning of the civil war, when generations of feuding between families begin when a Goodwin is killed by a Dillon during the taking of horses for the union army.The film then jumps to 1938 and the generations that followed these families. Naturally, Loretta Young and Richard Greene will become lovers and are from the different families with Greene hiding his Dillon name.Walter Brennan is absolutely magnificent here as the older Peter Dillon, who cried hysterically at the time of his father's murder in 1861. He plays a crusty, cantankerous individual with a rare knowledge of horse breeding and with it all, a wonderful human heart. His Academy Award as best supporting actor was extremely well deserved here.The blue grass of Kentucky was never more enjoyable in this sprawling film of great memories of a bygone era.

The Yankee ransacking prelude more or less spells out the eventuality that years later Young is going to fall for Greene and that their respective families are going to trample the path of true love. Quite literally, as the updated story is now played out against a bluegrass background.Get yourself into Hollywood mode and dispense with the logistics of script and story, and instead enjoy everything else. The performances, even though they embody strictly cliché and (predictably racial) caricature, are still marvellous for those who love a Fox-style wallow - Brennan won that year's Best Supporting Actor Oscar. The film is generally well and pacily edited, and the racing sequences are particularly exciting.The real star of this show though, for me, was the sublime photography which I can honestly say offered the most richest and well-preserved example of pre-40s 3-strip Technicolor I have so far seen. Even after more than 50 years, its luminescence (at least in this Channel 4 print) was breathtakingly striking and full of lustre, with yellow in particular registering far more strongly than I have previously seen in a 30s Technicolor movie, and natural outdoor verdance looking as if it had been sprayed with kiwi fruit dye. No doubt deployed deliberately to enhance the otherwise routine nature of the story, it would still take a considerable kick of horsepower to elevate the film to the grandeur of, say, 'Gone With The Wind', to which it bears more than a passing dramatic resemblance.

Tarnation, that Loretta Young is a mighty purty filly, and she darn near always wears a fetchin' ribbon, or sprig o' ivy, in her hair t' show off this here newfangled Technicolor process, y'all. But warn't thar a War Between the States? No'm. Tha's why ya still got yer two kinds o' nigra. First, thar's yer field nigra -- when he's not happy 'n' singin' like a chil', he's lazy 'n' stealin'. Then thar's yer house nigras -- a right reg'lar passel o' Uncle Toms 'n' Aunt Jemimas.Surely this is not intended to represent the reality of Kentucky in 1938? Which century is this supposed to be? Blacks in the '30's had good reason to be concerned about how they were portrayed in Hollywood films. Then there's the whole silliness of the film's basic premise -- feudin', mansion-dwelling, horse-breeding aristocrats. And I certainly don't want to hear "My Old Kentucky Home" again any time soon.In spite of everything, this corn pone still managed to make for an entertaining horseracing yarn however. Yes'm, it did.Moroni Olsen plays his usual stalwart patriarch, and Walter Brennan is convincingly cussed 'n' ornery.There is an unusual documentary sequence in mid-film showing and extolling the great racehorses of Kentucky, Man-O'-War included. And all in glorious early Technicolor.