Die goldene Peitsche

Kentucky (1938)

*** (out of 4)

Fun film involves two horse racing families from Kentucky who have been doing battle since the start of the Civil War and it continues to the current times. Eventually opposite family members Loretta Young and Richard Greene fall in love just as the Kentucky Derby comes around where Greene tries to prove himself as a horse trainer. I was surprised to see how enjoyable thing film was and one of the big benefits is the Technicolor used in the film. These early Technicolor films are often hit and miss on how well they look but this film here is quite beautiful to look at. It's certainly one of the best looking early Technicolor films that I've seen from this period. Another nice thing are the performances, which are all a lot of fun. Neither Young nor Greene speak with a southern accent, although the screenplay gives a reason for Greene not doing so. Even with the accents being wrong, both work incredibly well together and this here helps the love story (and the fighting moments). Walter Brennan won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar and he gives a fun, if over the top, performance. His redneck antics are pretty over the top but it's still fun and keeps the film moving with some nice laughs. Being from Kentucky it was great seeing how Churchill Downs looked back then as well. The stereotypes of the black servants in the film might offend some as they all come off rather dumb but so do the Southern characters.

Loretta Young, Richard Greene and Walter Brennan star in "Kentucky," a 1938 film about a longstanding dispute between two families, horses and the Kentucky Derby. Well directed by David Butler, the film was made in beautiful color.

The film begins during the Civil War, when young Peter watches as the Yankees take the thoroughbred horses from the Goodwin farm and kill his father when he tries to stop them. He never forgets that the Yankee Dillon family is responsible and 75 years later (as Walter Brennan) still hasn't forgiven them. Now in his 80s, he lives with his son, his wife and daughter on the farm where they train and breed thoroughbreds. The farm is in trouble, and when his son can't get a loan from the bank (presided over by his Dillon contemporary), he dies, leaving Sally (Young) his heir. Everything is sold off except for one horse, which is ruined for racing one night when Sally has to ride in the rain to get a doctor for her mother - the road is blocked by a tree so she can't drive. However, due to a bet Dillon and Goodwin made, Dillon has written a note offering any two-year old on his farm to Goodwin. Sally claims the horse for her father, a horse chosen by Uncle Peter. The younger Dillon (Greene), angry with his family, gives Sally a false name and offers to train the horse for her. The two fall in love.

Were it not for World War II, Richard Greene today might be on the list of stars of the classic era. He was getting the star buildup by 20th Century Fox and would have been a rival for Tyrone Power, but when war broke out in England, he returned to serve his country, losing all his career momentum. With his wavy black hair, widow's peak and dazzling smile, the handsome Greene resembles Robert Taylor in this film and is a good pairing with the beautiful Loretta Young. The great performance comes from Walter Brennan. Someone posted that he was 38 playing a man in his 60s. No, he wasn't. The film clearly states that it's 75 years since the Civil War, making Uncle Peter, who was about 10 when the soldiers arrived, nearer to 85. Brennan pulls it off. He won an Oscar for his performance. The film boasts some exciting racing scenes as well as a good story.

Brennan gives a great performance, and the romantic stars are attractive, but the true stars of "Kentucky" are the most magnificent horses you've ever seen. Although the trivia section of IMDb doesn't state it, those horses must have come from some thoroughbred farm. It's not only horses, but beautiful foals and colts. If you like horses, this movie is a no-miss. The animals are jaw-dropping, even better looking than Richard Greene and Loretta Young.

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.

The Look Of Eagles is what every great race horse has according to Walter Brennan in Kentucky. It's that gleam in the eye that you see in any athlete, human or equine, that tells you he's got heart. In the case of horses, heart enough to go the distance of a mile and a quarter, the set distance of the Kentucky Derby.

The third Oscar for Best Supporting Actor went to Walter Brennan for Kentucky as the 34 year old Brennan made up with white hair plays unreconstructed rebel Peter Goodwin, grand uncle to Loretta Young. This film set a standard for Brennan who played very little, but old codgers after that.

The leads in Kentucky are Loretta Young and Richard Greene who was no doubt brought to 20th Century Fox as a backup for Tyrone Power. In fact I wouldn't be surprised if the film was developed as something for Power originally who co-starred with Young on a few occasions.

The two are three generations removed from the Civil War which split the families apart. In a prologue to the modern story, the head of the Dillon family sides with the Union and the head of the Goodwin clan goes with the Confederacy. Later on Douglass Dumbrill head of the Dillon family now an officer in the Union Army raids the Goodwin farm and the head of the Goodwin family is shot and killed and the thoroughbred horses they were raising are taken as war contraband. Young Bobs Watson sees all this and he grows up to be Walter Brennan.

When Greene speeds by in a car and catches sight of Loretta Young on a horse, it's love at first sight, but a forbidden love because of the family feud. Greene and Young have a rocky road ahead, not helped by the fact that he gives up the banking business and goes to work for the Goodwins under an alias because she won't give him the right time of a day if she knows he's one of the hated enemy.

The 1938 Kentucky Derby is worked into the plot where Calumnet Farms Lawrin ridden by Eddie Arcaro wins and Arcaro also gets a line in the film. Lawrin stands in for the three year old colt owned by one of the feuding families. But the win is also clouded by tragedy.

A lot of black players get into Kentucky, but sad to say in some truly stereotypical roles. It's probably why Kentucky is rarely seen these days. I hadn't seen it myself in about 35 years.

Still for Brennan's dominating performance and Loretta Young at her prettiest you can't go wrong with Kentucky.

This 1938 film is a real love letter to the Kentucky Derby and it's Southern rooted thoroughbred history. It begins just prior to and during the Civil War, which sets the stage for a feud between the Dillon Family and the Goodwin Family. Then fast forward to 1938 and two grandchildren of the Dillion and Goodwin Family meet, have conflict and fall in love all over training thoroughbreds and racing in the Kentucky Derby.

Jack Dillon, played by the handsome Richard Greene, returns home to the family ranch in Kentucky from London England where he had been studying to go into the banking business with his father. The problem is Jack doesn't want to be a banker, he wants to be a horse trainer...when he has a disagreement with his father at the bank, he goes incognito as a trainer with the Goodwin Family after setting eyes on the lovely Sally Goodwin, played by the beautiful Loretta Young. The Goodwin family has all their hopes pinned on a single horse that they win from the Dillon Family making this year's Kentucky Derby high stakes!

There is definitely some Hollywood-ized Southern flair to this film, but it is worth seeing for its beautiful time capsule of 1938 Kentucky Derby and all it's fanfare. Great film for a Kentucky Derby family night.