Boots Malone

I was actually amazed how much I enjoyed this movie. William Holden makes most people think about "The Bridge on the River Kwai", for me I think of "Stalag 17" -- but this was a great fit.

If you have ever spent any time at the track, you will love this movie. The work out back, being with the horses and the people, the training and the thrill of the races, every part of the this movie brought back great memories and a smile to my face.

The supporting characters all felt perfect, and even the run-away boy being a natural rider idea is pure fun. Highly recommended for everyone.

I only watched "Boots Malone" because it was one of William Holden's early starring roles. However, I was not excited about having to watch a film that seemed like a B-movie about horse racing...a topic I couldn't care less about in the first place. However, I was shocked....despite a relatively low budget and a no-name actor in one of the leads, it was terribly entertaining.

Boots Malone (Holden) is a down and out agent for jockeys. He apparently lost his big money jockey and has hit upon hard times...and is forced to sleep in the stables with his buddy, Stash (Stanley Clements). Their fortunes change when a rich runaway teen (Billy Pearson) joins up with him and wants to learn the business.

The movie is like a behind the scenes look at the folks who are often overlooked in the horse racing industry and it never failed to keep my interest. Very well written and a nice film with heart...an excellent film and one which shocked me in so many positive ways.

By the way, it's odd that newcomer Pearson was billed around 8th in the movie...he was clearly the co-star of the picture.

I have lived and worked with thoroughbred racehorses for over thirty years and "thoroughly" enjoy re-watching and recommending "Boots Malone." It is an actual "Hollywood Classic" because it tells a story and tells it well. It is distressing to read the many poor synopses of the movie and the "I'm-a-cineaste-and-you'll-never-be" attitude of the reviewers. Boots is charging Tommy for "jockey" lessons after Tommy reveals that he has a lot of money. Boots is also considering "selling" Tommy back to his mother. This is the exact same character which he portrays in the also excellent Stalag 17 (scum of the earth with lots of class).

The film has everything you could possibly want to tell your friends about the racetrack. From organized gambling, win-mad owners, touts, corner-cutting sharpies (that's Boots), claiming races, auctions, the joke with the muck sack (Tommy falls in the pit), the Stewards review of the objection, and especially the scene in the Jock's Room where Tommy calls a rider "rail-shy." The man really is a jockey and beats the snot out of the kid.

Just a few things wrong, though, and it's almost like the mistakes were made deliberately. First, jockey agents are not permitted in the saddling paddock before a race. This is a rule. Second, the racetrack, Dellington, is on the East Coast, north of Baltimore according to the train destination board. Since the movie appears to have been made at Del Mar, there are palm trees in the background. Third, I've never been to an auction where there are drunken men in tuxedos and women in evening gowns. These things are strictly business. If you think you're smarter than the rest of the people there, you'd better be prepared to prove it.

Oh, and one more thing. Had I been a Steward, "White Cargo" would have been disqualified for interference. The objection was that Tommy hit the other horse with his whip, which he did not do because he is whipping with his left hand. But the horse is "getting out" badly precisely because the rider is whipping left-handed and pulling the horse to the right with the hand holding the reins. Watch for it when you go to the races, it is a frequent occurrence.

Stars bill holden. The 1950s were HUGE for him; he had just made sunset boulevard, and would go on to make sabrina and stalag 17. Won the oscar for stalag. Here, he's a washed up jockey's agent. His star jockey died, so now he's sleeping in the back room. Until a kid (johnny stewart) shows up who wants to be a rider. And that keeps malone around for a while. The gangsters show up and want to control the outcome. It's pretty contrived, but i'm sure stuff like this actually did happen. There's always someone looking to make a buck! Small roles for harry morgan (from dragnet and MASH), and stan clements. It's all cute, and silly, and over the top. The kid has kind of run away from home. Will they ever contact his mother? Can he learn to ride? Directed by william dieterle. Clement died young at 55. He was married to beautiful gloria grahame for three years! Grahame also died young at 57. The kid (stewart) seems to have had about ten roles in the 1950s, and then disappeared. The film is okay, if the story is a bit silly. P.s. The goose is home is a line from the movie!

Personally, I enjoy two atmospheres in life. Ballparks and racetracks. Baseball movies are usually about individual efforts, I've never seen one that captures the atmosphere of the game itself. But Boots Malone better than any other film I've seen about racing until last year's Seabiscuit, captures the whole flavor of the track itself.

You can literally smell the manure (and I don't mean that as a comment on the film) when you watch this thing. The characters in and around the track are Damon Runyon like, but not romanticized in the way he usually did.

There just the everyday folk you find there, working hard at something they love.

A lot of the movie depends on the chemistry of the four principal players. That this film has in abundance. Bill Holden as the cynical jockey's agent, Stanley Clements as the over the hill jockey who's now an exercise rider, Basil Ruysdael as the owner of a claiming horse with hidden promise and finally Johnny Stewart as the naive teenage kid who runs away from boarding school to hang around the track, all of them work very well in the scenes they have that's about half the film.

Bill Holden had three years earlier established himself as an actor to be reckoned with in Sunset Boulevard. No more nice guy parts, he's a tough cynical character. His Boots Malone is like Joe Gillis, a cynical survivor, also like Sefton in Stalag 17. Unlike those other two characters, we're shown the reason for Malone's cynicism and alienation, his wife and kid were killed several years earlier in a car crash.

The kid, Tommy Gibson played by Johnny Stewart, get to Malone. Bit by bit as Holden shows him the ropes around the racetrack community they develop a strong bond. Some of the best scenes in the film are those with Holden teaching Stewart the fundamentals of the jockey trade.

Johnny Stewart should have had a major film career. He had charisma and good acting skills in abundance. After this he made one more film and then left Hollywood to resume acting on the Broadway stage. I would love to know whatever happened to him.

I love this film very much and if you love the racetrack this film is a must.