Doble triunfo

In 'National Velvet' we witnessed 12-yr-old Elizabeth Taylor playing 14-yr-old Velvet Brown. She and her horse 'Pie' competed well in the Grand National but were disqualified on a technicality. Apparently her younger brother eventually made his home in the USA and had a 14-yr-old daughter Sarah who was orphaned when both her dad and mom died in an accident. As a result she was sent back to England where she was born, to live with her aunt who had a partner she was not married to, so she was still Velvet Brown. The movie begins with Sarah flying to England and meeting her aunt.

Tatum O'Neal who was 14 during filming plays Sarah Brown. At first she is very sullen, makes it clear that she doesn't want to be there, doesn't want to go to school, threatens to run away. But soon she softens a bit when the old horse 'Pie' fathers one more pony before being retired, Sarah takes a liking to the colt, and names it Arizona Pie. Soon she begins to make plans to try out for the British Equestrian Olympic team. (At 34 years between the two movies 'Pie' would be near 40 years old but I suspect we are to overlook that. Plus the 'Pie' in this movie looks totally different from the 'Pie' in the 1944 movie.)

Anyway Sarah's middle name is Velvet, thus the title since she hopes to compete internationally. The dates don't all quite work but I can easily overlook that in the interest of producing a plausible and interesting movie. Most of the last half-hour of the 2-hour movie is filmed like a TV telecast of the action at the Olympics, including glances of the Olympic village. And of course lots of realistic looking equestrian competition. They never really say what year it was supposed to be, but there are 'CCCP' sweatshirts in the crowd and a glimpse of a medal at the end shows 1980, the Summer Olympics held in Russia. Also a voice-over indicates that Velvet is now 40 years old, and during the Olympic competition Sarah is announced as an 18-year old and her horse, Arizona Pie, is 8 years old. It would take very 'fuzzy math' to reconcile all those numbers and ages.

But that is not a criticism, just an observation. We all know there is a healthy amount of 'creative license' in fictional movies. Overall I really enjoyed it, there is a connection of course to the 1944 movie but it is a quite different story. O'Neal is very good in the role.

I found it on DVD in a set of old horse themed movies at my public library. Good movie.

I saw this movie when I was 13. I think I must have seen it 50 times if not more. I bought 2 copies of the book, and have collected more than a few items of memorabilia that have to do with the movie over the years. I was so jealous of Tatum O'Neal, I wished it was me in the picture. I have been to Ledyard-where they filmed Sarah's first visit to the US as a member of the US team and it was awesome to see the 3 day eventing up close and personal. I love horses and even had my own for quite a while. (I even wanted to change his name to Arizona Pie but figured since he'd had his name for sometime that every time I called him, I was afraid he wouldn't come!!!) I have a copy of the movie and treasure it like it's gold! This movie is for anyone young or old who loves horses. It's a great family movie and one to be watched over and over again.

Luckily, horse lovers, particularly girls, will sit through two hours of B-Grade acting and weak plots for fifteen minutes of footage of showjumping. National Velvet, in which a little girl called Velvet Brown wins the grand national, was set in the 1920s.....in International Velvet, the now adult Velvet has reached 40 years of age.....International Velvet should be set in the 1950s. Instead, somehow it is the 70s, Velvet is in a defacto relationship with big hair and flared jeans and the link is at best tenuous. Would have been great if Elizabeth Taylor had played the adult Velvet at a realistic age, since she played Velvet in the original that made her a star.... Whatever, the horses are beautiful, the footage of cross country events and the birth of a foal is wonderful.....so girls like my pony-mad daughter won't notice the glaring inconsistencies, extraneous characters that serve no purpose, or the soap operatic sentimentality and nauseating 70s soundtrack. Great acting by Tatum O'Neal and Anthony Hopkins....although he would probably prefer to forget it!

Like its predecessor, National Velvet, International Velvet (1978) boasts a stellar cast: teenager Tatum O'Neal, the gorgeous Nanette Newman, and leading men Christopher Plummer and Sir Anthony Hopkins. It also has a more believable plot and a top-notch writer/director in Bryan Forbes (The Stepford Wives, The Slipper and the Rose, The Guns of Navarone, Colditz). The main stories are Sarah Brown's (O'Neal), an American orphan who finds herself in England with an aunt she doesn't know (Newman as the adult Velvet Brown), and of the horses and people inextricably entwined in their lives. A poignant and graceful growing up story of the challenges facing a difficult teenager and the adults who raise her, International Velvet has something for both horse lovers and non horse-lovers alike. More important than Sarah's bid for the Olympics is the love that is won. The cinematography and Francis Lai's soundtrack are stunning and awards worthy; Tatum should have won another Oscar with this role, too. Beautiful scenery. An under-rated feel-good family film!

Warning: Box of tissues useful when watching this movie as, amid the love and triumph, there is some gritty realism.

This is a good, enjoyable and fairly accurate depiction of the eventing world, with plenty of good riding action (shot with real event riders, not stunt actors) - a perfect movie for riding fans. Yes, it is set in a world of fairly wealthy people with posh accents, but that is the context of the film. You don't find many ethnic minority people from housing estates, with cockney accents, competing in top level eventing (even now).

Fans of the book National Velvet will spot lots of inconsistencies (The Pie isn't piebald and the dates are wrong). If viewed as a completely separate film in it's own right, though, then the interactions between the heroine and her 'adoptive' parents are very genuine. Even so, the plot is incidental to the riding and so some parts are a bit weak, but that won't bother any horse fans. And to the various reviewers who commented on the heroine being played by an American actor - they obviously haven't actually seen the film because the heroine is American.