Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)First, I agree with the other reviewer about the picture quality. The first episode had a white line down the middle of the screen. The whole thing looked like something that was tape-recorded off of TV 20 years ago. I have old tapes on my shelf that are about the same quality. They could have cleaned it up a little before releasing it. As for the story, the events stuck very close to the book. They set it in and around Baltimore in the 1880s, but the progression of owners and situations was the same up until the end, when Beauty was bought by Farmer Gray's now-grown son. A lot of the movie was more about the people than about the horses. I forwarded through Farmer Gray's son's life in New York. I missed hearing more of Beauty's point of view. After the run for the doctor and back, you didn't get a sense of just how sick he really was and how he longed for John Manly. I would like to have had more about Ginger's background and more of Merrylegs, period. Merrylegs wasn't in the book a whole lot, either, but he was such a character you can't help but like him. He might as well have not even been in the movie for all we saw of him. We didn't hear anything of Ginger's background, so you didn't know why she reacted so badly to the check rein and didn't feel much sympathy for her. I also didn't see any need to for Ginger to have been sold immediately after that incident. They had Lizzie who was described as bad tempered so it's not like all of their horses had perfect temperaments. They combined Beauty seeing Ginger again and Beauty and Jerry's Sunday fare into one scene and didn't do justice to either one. That was disappointing as those were such good scenes in the book. The scene where Beauty can't get the load up the hill could have been done better. In the book, you get the idea he's climbing a steep hill and fighting every step of the way with a sore, aching neck and back and you really feel for his situation. In the movie, the road looks flat and if you weren't familiar with the story, you'd be surprised when the carter says it's a hill. The lady convinced him to remove the check rein and Beauty didn't so much as shake his head around, then he pulled the cart all of about five feet to the top of the "hill". The scene didn't have the feel that it should have. Mostly I missed hearing Beauty's point of view through a lot of the situations. If they'd had a little less of Luke Gray, they could have had a little more of the horses.
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Black Beauty - The Complete Mini-Series! Black Beauty, the popular and heartwarming literary classic, comes to life in this five part NBC miniseries. Filmed entirely on location in the beautiful horse country of Kentucky, Black Beauty is the story of a horse, the people who loved and cared for him, and those who did not. It is the story of a magnificent spirit that overcame all odds and prevailed. Starring Ike Eisenmann, Eileen Brennan, Martin Milner, Diane Ladd and William DeVane, Black Beauty includes a stellar cast of guest stars, including Clu Gulager, Peter Breck, Forrest Tucker, Jack Elam, Van Johnson, Edward Albert and Farley Granger. Horse lovers of all ages will be captivated by this timeless tale of love, loss and redemption. Bonus Feature: A conversation with Petrine Day Mitchum, author of "Hollywood Hoofbeats: Trails Blazed Across the Silver Screen", the fascinating behind-the-scenes story of that most noble of all screen actors, the horse.
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