Sweet, but kind of half-assed horse racing movie. It tried to focus more on the relationships between people, and the drama there, than on the inherent tension, drama, and interest of horse races, but the people-story was tired and predictable, cribbed from low-complexity "juvenile" movies. Not a story worth focusing on, is what I mean. It is not easy or cheap to do a horse racing movie the correct way, but this did the bare minimum: it showed two full races, a small handful of training scenes, an auction, and a surprisingly long veterinary surgery which was possibly the most interesting passage of the movie. Otherwise the scenes were, like, in stables or in fields, not closely interacting with the horses. Seabiscuit it ain't.
The focus was intended to be on little Juanito, who never gives up on a lame foal which ends up winning the Kentucky Derby, but little Juanito has no inner life, no charisma, and not much acting talent. Stuart Whitman is in this, but he's kind of an appendage to the story; Vera Miles is a cliched rich bitch. No one in the cast seems interested in the film, but they don't seem especially hostile to it either. That's about how I felt too. If this is for kids, they deserved a little better, but it'd be fine to leave 'em in front of it for a bit while you take a long shower and call your sister.
Nothing too 70s about this except the distrust of money & the Establishment represented by Miles. There's a brief scene in a hideous nightclub, and the haircuts are unfortunate, but that's about all. Oh, and Juanito is wearing a Dy-no-mite! t-shirt at one point.
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