La vita che sognava

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.

I had never heard of the film, BOOTS MALONE, but William Holden has always stood as one of my all time favorite actors, so I decided to watch it - and, boy, am I glad I did!, because in the process I hit upon a superlative example of unpretentions filmmaking and peerless direction.

In addition, I had the great pleasure of watching one of Holden's career-best shows. Here, he is a near-bum horseracing jock agent, moneyless and ready to steal candy from the comparative babe that is Johnny Stewart, a boy who lost his father and is on the run from his Paris, France-based business-running dictatorial mother, and just wants to realize a personal dream of running as jockey.

Holden is a gray hero. He takes a beating for causing racetrack bet losses to a heavy, seemingly does not have the moral force to get even, and instead trains the opportunity spotlight on the youngster... but Holden is the one who gets taught a lesson.

In keeping with his two- or three-timing character, at the end Holden is on the run from the mob for failing to throw the race, and he catches the train of opportunity - his American Dream may yet be in Paris, France... even if Stewart's mother looks a bit too shrewish for comfort!

Fitting, realistic cinematography, strong dialogue, solid acting across the board make this a must-see. 8/10.

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.

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!

I couldn't give this film a 10 primarily because I didn't know how accurately this film captured its subject. For example, I never knew that jockey's had Agents, although I suspected the more successful ones had someone to represent and manage their contracts. I enjoyed watching this film recently on TCM for the first time. It was a very enjoyable film, and I thought one of William Holden's best acting performances, which means credit should also go to the Director.

Unlike nearly ever sports film I have ever seen, I wasn't certain who was going to win the race. In most other films about sport, there never seems to be a doubt as to who will finish first or win, whether its Rocky or Seabiscuit. Seabiscuit was based on a real and famous horse. Obviously it was going to win most of his races. I purchased Seabiscuit on a DVD and was disappointed, because I doubt I will ever watch it again.

Boots Malone was one of the few films about sports that I could not guess the outcome. Wining the race, was not central to the film's theme,which was about the friendship that developed between a young, naive, rich kid, who had every material thing, but lacked something that money can't buy.

Holden's character is a cynical, far from lovable cad who tries to steal the kid's money the first time they meet. I thought his character was a little like Robert Louis Stevenson's Long John Silver, a cad by any measure, but someone that the kid couldn't hate. Like Long John, Malone continually acts in his own interests. In the last moments of the film, he tries to talk the kid into throwing the race, and one has to wonder whether the kid will, because of his devotion to Holden. The viewer really doesn't know who to root for because a win means serious trouble for Holden from the gamblers. Gamblers are a pox to any sport because they make their living with fixes and threats to anyone who can give them an edge in betting and profits. I do know something about that problem.

This film was one of Holden's best. David Lean didn't get as good a performance from Holden in Bridge on the River Kwai

This film reminds me of Holden's early performance in Rachel and the Stranger in which Holden demonstrates his ability as an actor capable of moving his role from one position to another.

For the critics who didn't like this film, I would offer the comment that this film made in 1952 and bad year for the movies, and was not high budget film. Holden was not a big star, and the film had to rely on some great number of familiar character actors. The "kid" was also a tough role to play, and he didn't measure up to star quality as evidence by his quick disappearance from film. A movie without sex, or violence that couldn't be shown on TV was not likely to make a splash, considering that Holden's career didn't get jump started until Stalag 17. I thought Holden, as an actor, was better in this relatively obscure film. The Oscar's have a spotty record of picking out the best performances. Making up for past mistakes seems to be a tradition on Oscar night.

Perhaps this was the case in 1952 and 1953.