Very disappointed :(

Better Late Then Never

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Brassy acting, bright colors, overflowing comedy and excessive emotion was the name of the game in their comedies of the 1960's and 70's. They produced a style of film for 20 years from 1959's "The Absent Minded Professor" through the last of the "Love Bug" series that scream "take it down a notch". It's well meaning family fare, but the films more often than not quickly date, having an attitude that if you watch it for five minutes after missing the credits, you can tell it's Disney. They aren't, in most cases, bad films, but there's no doubt that they just went a bit too far, having themes or settings, that weren't always the dreamland of "Mary Poppins" or "Bedknobs and Broomsticks".Disney films introduced me to the smarmy businessman and his "yes men", with "Mr. Big" usually Keenan Wynn, but here the snarky Fred Clark. Among his yes men are Morey Amsterdam and Dean Jones, both of them speaking as if talking to the third balcony, hopefully not swallowing flies as they brayed their lines with overly wide mouth movements. Jones is the too busy to notice father of Ellen Javov, a shy teenager interested in horses. He's too busy pill pushing, here trying to come up with a new slogan for a huge pill (purpose unclear) and names a horse he buys for Javov after that obnoxious pill. To get a promotion to VP, Jones pushes his daughter to win three medals to get to DC and finds himself up against his daughter's teacher, the beautiful Diane Baker. Superdad Jones gets in over his head, and hopefully learns to do these things out of love for his daughter, and calm down his frenetic acting before moving onto Broadway for the upcoming musical "Company".In spite of the frantic pacing and in your face acting, this turns out to be rather entertaining, if not slightly overlong. Sadly, Javov would die tragically at a very young age (having only made one film), and she's more subtle than many of the veteran players. Rambunctious Kurt Russell plays her all American boyfriend, with Lurene Tuttle amusing as Jones' feisty aunt. Veteran character actress Nydia Westman has a cute cameo as the old lady in the elevator looking for the tenth floor. Typical farce, chase sequences and comical chaos helps this move along, although a 15 minute trimming might have helped this be a bit tighter.

an all family movie from the 60's If you were ever a horse crazy youngster and want to see a film with a bunch of beautiful horses and a Benji looking dog. here it is... although you will have it all figured out in advance, it is an entertaining, fun flick. all are happy, all ends well for everyone in this film. there is no downside unless you die from the sugar in it all. You will see a real young Kurt Russell as Dean Jones' daughters' boyfriend too,then you can check how he looks nowadays in his more mature adult roles, like Stargate etc. If you want to show your kids or grandkids a time when the hard facts of life were set aside in favor of some light entertainment and that all movies don't have portray "real Life" this is one of them. Disney was so good at bringing out fairy tales and just nice movies. Another thing i always liked was seeing events that do not occur anywhere around where i lived. Eastern style riding, the clothes, the events held and even the horses are alien to what we see out here in the western u.s. I am used to rodeos and quarter horses, and have yet to see an actual steeplechase, or sulky race or folks togged out for fox hunting. Even the jumping events that are in this show are not commonly found here in the rocky Mountains. So watching it is kind of extra fun, because it is not common here.

The whole set-up of this contrived Disney family film (ad-exec gets his teenage daughter a horse because she "wants one more than anything else in the world") is just an excuse to film the big climactic horse-show at the end. All the other ingredients (the ad campaign for the stomach pill, Kurt Russell as a potential boyfriend for the youngster, Lloyd Bochner as a potential rival for Dean Jones over the affections of Diane Baker) are shelved near the end simply to showcase the horse. Over half the picture is padding, and worse: it is whiny and obnoxious. The kid is the ninny-sort who cries on the couch with a dog in her arms, and as usual she gets her way. * from ****

Dean Jones is one of the most underrated actors in Hollywood; every part he plays is imbued with his own brand of sincerity. Catch him in this film; he never makes a false step. Diane Baker plays the riding instructor and Dean's love interest, and she's also fantastic. This is a quiet, well-made film, typical of Disney and the quality stuff he put out. I still enjoy watching this movie, and it's a great family film.