National Velvet
1944, NR, 125 min.
Directed by Clarence Brown, Narrated by , Voices by , Starring Elizabeth Taylor, Mickey Rooney, Donald Crisp, Angela Lansbury, Anne Revere.

This time-tested family film is deservedly a classic. Twelve-year-old Elizabeth Taylor is in top form here as young Velvet Brown, a girl who is determined to enter the Grand National and ride her horse to victory. The character’s spirit and determination, and Taylor’s appealing honesty and openess, make this girl-and-her-horse story a tale of a different color.

This article appears in August 3 • 2001.

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Marjorie Baumgarten is a film critic and contributing writer at The Austin Chronicle, where she has worked in many capacities since the paper's founding in 1981. She served as the Chronicle's Film Reviews editor for 25 years.