The Rocking Horse Winner

The Rocking Horse Winner is directed by Anthony Pelissier, who also adapts the screenplay from the D. H. Lawrence short story of the same name. It stars Valerie Hobson, John Howard Davies, Ronald Squire, John Mills, Hugh Sinclair and Susan Richards. Music is by William Alwyn and cinematography by Desmond Dickinson.

Dreadful, Evil Money.

There's a handful of British films from the 1940s that deserve to be far better known, films that blended haunted themes with film noir traits and visual smarts. The Night Has Eyes, Uncle Silas, Corridor Of Mirrors and the magnificent Queen Of Spades readily come to mind. Now it has an official DVD release, we can add Anthony Pelissier's brilliant The Rocking Horse Winner to the obscure gem list.

Story has young Paul Grahame (Davies) receiving a weird looking Rocking Horse for Christmas. He's an introverted and sensitive lad, seemingly reaching out for some sort of guidance from his parents. Unfortunately his mother, Hester (Hobson), is a spendthrift badly hung up on money as some sort of status symbol, while his father, Richard (Sinclair), is a gambler, and not a good one at that. With Uncle Oscar Creswell (Squire) bailing them out of financial trouble for the last time, the Grahame family are heading for bankruptcy unless income can be found. Befriending the new handyman, Bassett (Mills), Paul is delighted to find that Bassett is an ex-jockey and regales him with tails of horse racing, he even learns from Bassett how to ride his Rocking Horse like a real jockey. Then something magical happens, Paul seems to be able to predict the winners of real horse races, and the money starts to roll in…

D. H. Lawrence's story gets a faithful adaptation and transfers quite excellently to the screen. It's a haunting fantasy at heart, but one tinged with utter sadness, and being Lawrence it has a sex metaphor sitting right in the middle of the greed and exploitation thematics. As story progresses, it soon becomes evident that Paul has to ride his Rocking Horse to a frenzied climax, if he doesn't get there then he will not see the name of the next race winner. Initially he is thrilled to be able to win lots of money, the house seems to be telling him that his parents must have more money, so aided by Bassett, he is saving the cash to help his frantic mother, who by now has resorted to pawning possessions for cash. But the more he wins, and the more Bassett and Uncle Oscar also profit, the further away from his parents Paul gets. Soon enough it's going to come to a head and it will prove to be devastating for the Grahame family.

Pelissier, Alwyn and Dickinson each work respective wonders to smoother the picture with a sense of the unearthly, not so much supernatural, but like a blurry discord, a purgatory where ignorant parenting dwells and childhood innocence is corrupted. Pic is crammed with sinister imagery. The Rocking Horse itself is up in the attic, which gives the makers perfect opportunities for shadows to enhance the "unhealthy" scenes of Paul riding away like a boy possessed, while for the key scene Pelissier uses a depth perception technique that is gloriously disorientating. An ascent by Paul up to the attic is moody magnificence, Hester's visit to the back room Pawnbroker (Charles Goldner) drips with unease, while the finale features a near demonic last shot that literally will be burned into your soul.

With top performances from the cast to seal the deal, this tale of a boy and his Rocking Horse gnaws away at the senses as the fallibility of the human condition is frighteningly laid bare. 9/10

This is a very intriguing British film, quite unlike most others from the period; it's a pretty dark Freudian tale, from a D H Lawrence short story, whose overt depiction of a schoolboy and his magic toy gets away with a strictly taboo subtext. The focus is on a well-to-do household of the period, in which the hierarchy of adults and children is strictly defined; the parents try to keep their son Paul, wearing short trousers even in the depths of winter, innocent of their adult concerns – in particular, their problems with money. After discovering that his rocking horse gives him secret powers when he rides it hard enough, with giddy camera-work showing how it feels when he 'gets there', the boy tries to usurp his father's role to provide his mother with what she needs. John Mills produced the film, and his interest was no doubt linked to his typecast image: he normally plays rather piously unimpeachable characters, so it's quite a shock to see him here directing the lad's first experience of 'riding'. The only slight difficulty is that the boy actor needed to be nearer his early teens to carry the weight of the story's darker implications.

I've seen a few rocking horses in my time, but none that looked like this one. With its predatory teeth, gaping mouth, and flaring eyes, it looks more like Halloween than X-mas. No wonder it's got supposedly demonic powers. But then the social-climbing parents need help of the monetary kind. Mom (Hobson) isn't happy with just a big house and servants. She wants top status among the British upper-class, and by golly she'll spend whatever it takes, affordable or not. Meanwhile, Dad (Sinclair) tries to keep up by losing at gambling, while Uncle Oscar (Squire) is finally fed up with doling out money from the family trust. That leaves the kids (Davies, et.al.) to make out as best they can with neglectful parents. So where will the money come from, and how will the kids connect with Mom. Enter an infernal toy.

I can see the premise being done on the Twilight Zone, but certainly not to better effect. With his rather narrow eyes, little Paul (Davies) is positively scary when demonically whipping both himself and the wooden horse into a sweaty frenzy. A thousand gory films could not register more strongly than these inspired scenes. It's a unnerving spectre that moves the entire film into a special category of its own.

Surprisingly, the suspense of the rocking horse is not built up in the movie's main part. Instead, the film's majority deals with more ordinary matters: placing bets, pawning dresses, Uncle Oscar, Bassett (Mills) and Paul. Thus a natural contrast is laid for the demonic scenes. Nonetheless, the acting is first-rate, though Sinclair pretty much fades into the background as Dad, while Hobson's mom takes center stage in sleekly determined fashion. Then again, Mills is especially winning as the humane handy man. Happily, he furnishes needed companionship for the lonely boy. And, given the parent's upper-class pretensions, I detect a comment on the effects of Britain's traditional class system.

To me, however, it's never clear whether the whispering comes from the house or from Paul's internalizing of the family's money troubles. But, either way, the never-ending need for picking race-horse winners drives poor Paul into continuing his rocking horse frenzy. The tragedy lies in the personal toll this takes on him for the sake of his generally oblivious mother. Still, it is possible, unless I missed something, that Paul is just lucky picking winners rather than rocking horse possessed. After all, he wants to think he's lucky and maybe he is. In that case, no supernatural would be involved. Instead the upshot would be how an imaginative boy internalizes overriding family greed. In that case, I think the ending would be even more tragic. I may be mistaken, but I don't think the screenplay forecloses this second possibility. Either way, however, those final scenes are genuinely memorable.

Speaking of endings, it's certainly not one Hollywood's Motion Picture Code would have permitted. Good for the British. Because what we're left with is a truly remarkable one-of-a- kind, whose moral is as timely now as 6 decades ago. Don't miss it.

In London, the teenager Paul Grahame (John Howard Davies) lives with his upper class but financially broken family. His wasteful mother Hester Grahame (Valerie Hobson) is a compulsive buyer, spending all the family money in new expensive dresses, jewels and objects for their home. His father Richard Grahame (Hugh Sinclair) is a gambler, losing money in the horse races. His uncle Oscar Cresswell (Ronald Squire) is permanently covering the Grahame family debts. When the servant Bassett (John Mills) is hired, Paul finds that he can predict the winner of the horses' races rocking his wooden horse. Paul asks Bassett to become his partner, betting their money in the races, trying to prove that he is lucky and silencing the permanent whisper of the house needing more money. But the prize is high and fatal.

"The Rocking Horse Winner" is a dark tale of compulsion of D. H. Lawrence. I have never read his short story, and I did not feel any sexual connotation as mentioned in some reviews that I have glanced. The story is very disturbing and quite unpleasant, with great direction and performances, especially of Valerie Hobson in the role of a compulsive shallow woman. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Cavalo Campeão" ("The Horse Winner")

One day, a fine young lad, played by John Howard Davies, gets a wooden rocking horse for a Christmas gift by his favorite uncle, a rich uncle. His father is a butterfingers with money, as he bets and loses it, while his wife, played by Valerie Hobson, is constantly at him, saying they need more money, we simply must have it. She, by the way, is used to having her way and used to living beyond their means. The uncle is her brother who has gotten them out of more than one financial scrape, who now refuses to do it anymore. He's done. The boy discovers by getting on the horse and rocking, that the horse not only talks to him, but gives him tips on the winners at the horse track. By way of betting through the groundskeeper, played by John Mills, the young boy amasses gads of money. And yet, what starts as a fantasy and a somewhat whimsical little film takes a dramatic and scary turn. This film has a little bit of everything for everyone: fantasy, humor, drama, and even a bit of the Gothic touch. The lesson to be learned from this film is simple: do not argue, or discuss money issues, in front of your children. One feels that maybe writer D. H. Lawrence, who wrote the short story from which this was based, may have lived a similar type of childhood but to a degree obviously. If it's draining for an adult, how do you think it makes children feel? This climax is made for a point for all adults - to learn from and change. A very dramatic and memorable film is "The Rocking Horse Winner." All the actors were exceptional, including the young lad, but the real star of the story is author D. H. Lawrence's imagination that tries to teach people the only way he can.