Kentucky

The main interest today in this hoary old 20th Century-Fox horse-racing saga resides in two things: the splendid richness of the Technicolor and the Oscar-winning performance of veteran Walter Brennan (his second of three supporting actor Academy Awards) a reminder of what a fine actor he could be before he was reduced to toothless characterisations in a slew of minor westerns at the end of his career. Loretta Young and Richard Greene are the impossibly good-looking young leads, and the bluegrass countryside has never looked more beguiling. The plot about feuding horse-breeding families owes as much to Romeo and Juliet as it does to the source novel, The Look of Eagles, by co-screenwriter John Taintor Foote.