This summer I am watching movies starring or co-starring Angela Lansbury.

Up this week I watched National Velvet, which Angela only has a very small part in. It was  her third movie and she was 19-years old.

This was after she had won an Oscar in her first movie, Gaslight. This was certainly not a film I would expect an Oscar-winning actress in, but it was a sweet, cozy, and wholesome film.

I find it funny that Angela was playing a character who was supposed to be younger than she actually was in real life.

Her character, Edwina Brown, was supposed to be 14 in the movie. She was the most mature 14-year-old I ever saw.

But let’s get back to what National Velvet is about.

Movie description:

When Velvet Brown (Elizabeth Taylor), an equine-loving 12-year-old living in rural Sussex, becomes the owner of a rambunctious horse, she decides to train it for England’s Grand National race. Aided by former jockey Mi Taylor (Mickey Rooney) and encouraged by her family, the determined Velvet gets her steed, affectionately called “The Pie,” ready for the big day. However, a last-minute problem arises with the jockey and an unexpected rider must step in as a replacement.

The movie, released in 1945 was based on the 1935 book, National Velvet, by Enid Bagnold. It was directed by Clarence Leon Brown.

It begins with Velvet Brown and her sisters at school. Her older sister is daydreaming about boys while Velvet is daydreaming about horses.

She wants to ride horses all of the time and on her way home from school she sees a horse after meeting wandering jockey Mi Taylor, who is actually on his way to see her mother. She doesn’t know Mi is a former jockey, but she thinks he is fascinating anyhow. The horse Velvet sees is called The Pie, or at least that is what she calls him. He’s wild and crazy and escapes the paddock where he is kept, leading an absolutely huge stone wall.

Mi is excited when he sees the jump but it isn’t until later that we will learn why.

Velvet stops The Pie from running and the owner says she should be more careful because he is wild. Velvet takes Mi home to her parents and he presents an autograph book to her mother. The book has her name in it and he wants to know how she knew his father.

She doesn’t tell him that night but we learn later in the movie how they knew each other. After some humorous moments, Mi is invited to stay with the family and later in the movie The Pie, a troublemaker horse, is auctioned off and the Brown family buys a ticket, hoping to win him for Velvet.

Highlights for me:

This movie had beautiful scenery.

It was supposed to take place in England but was actually filmed primarily in California and very few of the actors used British accents, other than a couple of actual English actors, including Angela.

I love watching The Pie race across the gorgeous hills with the backdrop of the ocean.

Angela wasn’t in the movie very long at all but when she was, she had some fun moments, and it was really fun to see her so young. I’m really looking forward to watching her in Gaslight, when she was even younger.

I loved Velvet’s mother. The actress (Anne Revere, who won an Oscar for her performance) pulled her off perfectly. She seemed stern at first, but she was truly the glue that held the family together and the motivation for Velvet to reach for her dreams.

Velvet’s mother crossed the channel when she was young, something no other woman had done before. When Velvet wants to race her horse in England’s Grand National, her mother wanted her daughter to have the same excitement she had with her accomplishment.

“We’re alike,” Mrs. Brown tells her. “I, too, believe that everyone should have a chance at a breathtaking piece of folly once in his life. I was twenty when they said a woman couldn’t swim the Channel. You’re twelve; you think a horse of yours can win the Grand National. Your dream has come early; but remember, Velvet, it will have to last you all the rest of your life.”

Mrs. Brown had quite a few good quotes in the movie actually. Here is another one:

“What’s the meaning of goodness if there isn’t a little badness to overcome?”

She was my favorite character.

What I thought of Angela in the movie

As I’ve mentioned above, Angela was in this movie very little. In the parts she was in she was very good and provided humor or sweet moments.

Here character, Edwina, was starting to get interested in boys and Velvet was excited to tell their teacher about Edwina meeting a boy later that night after the last day of school. Of course, when Edwina walks past the boy she intends to meet later she ignores him.

Velvet says she doesn’t understand why she did that and Edwina responds with, “Velvet, you’re too young to understand some things.”

The sisters, their arms around each other as they walk, talk about growing up.

“Haven’t you really felt keen about anything?” Edwina asks.

“Oh yes!” Velvet says looking at a horse as they pass.

“Horses!” Edwina says with an eyeroll. “What’s it feel like to be in love with a horse?”

“I lose my lunch,” Velvet says.

“Oh no,” Edwina says with a dramatic flourish, touching her hand to her throat and upper chest. “It’s here where you feel it. It skips a beat.”

And off she wanders to follow Teddy who has just ridden by on his bike.

Later, when Mr. Brown is tucking the three girls in at night, Edwina has just come in from seeing Teddy a bit earlier and is now in bed with the covers up to her chin. She’s “fast asleep” and her father is amazed she can sleep through all the noise.

Before he leaves the room he tells Edwina she’d better change into her nightclothes and Edwina is furious he found her out.

I’m guessing that she intended to sneak out that night.

Later in the movie she shows her true teenage self when she yells that she’s sick of hearing about Velvet’s horse and hopes he dies.

She apologizes for this outburst before Velvet leaves to go the Grand National, hugging her sister and telling her she should have never said it.

What I thought overall:

I didn’t expect to like this movie. Elizabeth Taylor’s little child voice was a bit annoying to me at first because it was almost as if it was overdone.

I just decided that was her voice and got used to it finally. Then I really enjoyed the movie, especially the humorous moments among the family members, including Velvet’s little brother Donald. He was hilarious and reminded me of kids I’ve met before.

This exchange was so cute:

Donald Brown: I was sick all night!

Mr. Herbert Brown: Donald, you told a story, didn’t you?

Donald Brown: Yes, sir, it was a story.

Mr. Herbert Brown: Well, you know what to do.

Donald Brown: What?

Mr. Herbert Brown: You say you’re sorry.

[Donald puts his head on his hand]

Mr. Herbert Brown: Well?

Mrs. Brown: He’s thinking.

Mr. Herbert Brown: [to Donald] Well, make up your mind.

Donald Brown: Alright, I’m sorry.

[continues eating his dinner]

Mr. Herbert Brown: Well, go on. Sorry for what?

Donald Brown: For being sick all night!

Mr. Herbert Brown: That boy will make a lawyer.

What Angela said about the movie:

At a Lifetime Achievement award ceremony for Elizabeth Taylor, Angela talked about meeting Elizabeth and how she (Angela) felt like she was superior to Elizabeth who was seven years younger.

“I had already done Gaslight and I was playing a 14-year-old, your sister and I thought I was really beyond that, you know, I was all of 18 and smoked cigarettes with Charles Boyer and worked with Ingred Bergman,” she said with a laugh.

In an interview with Studio 10 shortly before she died, Angela said she and Elizabeth remained friends from the time they met on National Velvet until Elizabeth died in 2011. Angela presented Elizabeth with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1993 and talked about Elizabeth’s impact on the industry and said when she first met her on the set of National Velvet she knew there was something special about her.

I couldn’t find many other interviews where Angela talked about National Velvet, but I am sure they are out there.

A bit of trivia or facts:

• Elizabeth, 11 when filming started, did most of her own riding and stunts, bonding with the horse for months leading up to the film.
• The Pie, real name King Charles, was gifted to Elizabeth Taylor for her birthday when filming was over.
• Andy Rooney’s scenes had to be filmed first and in one month because he had been drafted by the Army and was expected to show up for duty June of 1944.
• The movie was released during World War II, during a time when a wholesome story was really needed.
• The equine star, The Pie, was played by a 7-year-old Thoroughbred called King Charles. A grandson of the legendary Man o’ War, King Charles was reportedly purchased by MGM for $800. 
• Elizabeth was originally told she couldn’t have the role because she didn’t yet have boobs. Over the next few months Elizabeth, who loved the National Velvet book, started a special diet full of high protein, trained heavily, exercised and grew three inches from October to December. She returned to tell the producer who said she needed boobs that she had come back with boobs!
• National Velvet won a total of five Academy Award nominations, including one for Brown as Best Director; and two Oscars — for Anne Revere as Best Supporting Actress as Velvet’s understanding mother and Robert Kern for Film Editing.
• After the winners of the Oscars had been announced, an Academy spokesman said that Taylor had narrowly missed winning a special Oscar for best juvenile performance — an award that went instead to Peggy Ann Garner for A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1944).
• Anne Revere’s performance as Mrs. Brown was so entrancing that neither audiences nor critics pointed out that it was rendered with a pronounced New York accent.
• King Charles, playing The Pie, was first-cousin of champion thoroughbred Seabiscuit, subject of two biopics. Both had Man o’ War as grand-sire.
• From IMDb: “The story that Mi Taylor (Mickey Rooney) tells Donald Brown (Jackie ‘Butch’ Jenkins) about a shipwrecked horse is a legend based on fact. In 1904, a New Zealand-bred thoroughbred named “Moiffa” won the Grand National race. It was reported at the time that Moiffa had survived being shipwrecked on a deserted island. However, according to the Grand National’s web site, another horse named “Kiora,” who also ran in the Grand National that same year, was the shipwreck survivor. In January, 1901, a steamship bearing Kiora had gone down in a storm in the Cape of Good Hope. Kiora escaped the shipwreck, and swam to Mouille Point, a beach in Cape Town, South Africa, where he was rescued by local fishermen. In 1904, the newspaper reporters simply assumed that Moiffa, the Grand National winner, was also the shipwrecked horse. In 1979, Mickey Rooney starred in The Black Stallion (1979), which was about a shipwrecked horse that goes on to win a major race.”

Next week I will be writing Bedknobs & Broomsticks.

Other movies I will be watching (the dates are the day I will be writing about them):

July 4 – Gaslight

July 11 –  The Shell Seekers

July 18 – Murder She Wrote: The Celtic Riddle

July 25 – The Mirror Cracked

August 1 – The Court Jester

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Additional Resources:

National Velvet Movie Facts: https://www.willowbrookridingcentre.co.uk/national-velvet-movie-facts/

National Velvet Trivia IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037120/trivia/

National Velvet article on TCM.com: https://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/84601/national-velvet#articles-reviews?articleId=12668

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Lisa R. Howeler is a blogger, homeschool mom, and writes cozy mysteries.

You can find her Gladwynn Grant Mystery series HERE.

You can also find her on Instagram and YouTube.