If dogs are indeed man's best friend, then horses provide the transportation that delivers them because they are indeed a close second. For young Buzz Henry, his grandfather's rodeo horse Briar has indeed been his best pal, and Briar helps him through the roughest patch of his life, losing the only family member he's ever loved, Grandpa Raymond Hatton. The small community they have just moved to features a devoted young minister (Russell Hayden) whose church is in financial trouble, and when one of the town elders, Jonathan Hale, suggests that he marry wealthy widow Jean Parker, Hayden is livid. She's a snooty young woman who is aghast by the presence of rodeo performers in their town, but passive/aggressively pretends to care when Briar goes missing and she offers a reward for him.
The perky Pamela Blake plays Parker's young daughter, planted in a boarding school by her neglectful mother, finding Briar and taking him to hide with her paternal grandfather Jimmy Conlin. She hysterically asks him to hide the horse with his pink elephants, an inside joke that he may enjoy a nip now and then. Hayden is actually in love unknowingly with Parker's niece, Jo Ann Marlowe, but the scheming Parker has other ideas for him.
There's a lot going on in this homey drama, reminding me of big budget films such as "National Velvet", "Kentucky", "Maryland" and "Home in Indiana", other films that dealt with horse racing and the human love for them. Good performances especially by the child actors makes this independent programmer well worth seeing.
Parker, who played mostly heroines, is fascinating as a shrewish control freak, trying to dominate everybody in town and unlike Hale, unable to see past her own desires and willing to see the town fall apart if she can't get what she wants. While the title of this film indicates that it's a western, it only shows that in the scene where Hatton has an accident while riding Briar out in the open. In spite of the fact that there are a lot of characters and a lot of story for each of them, this flows nicely and ends up being a surprise little sleeper.
The perky Pamela Blake plays Parker's young daughter, planted in a boarding school by her neglectful mother, finding Briar and taking him to hide with her paternal grandfather Jimmy Conlin. She hysterically asks him to hide the horse with his pink elephants, an inside joke that he may enjoy a nip now and then. Hayden is actually in love unknowingly with Parker's niece, Jo Ann Marlowe, but the scheming Parker has other ideas for him.
There's a lot going on in this homey drama, reminding me of big budget films such as "National Velvet", "Kentucky", "Maryland" and "Home in Indiana", other films that dealt with horse racing and the human love for them. Good performances especially by the child actors makes this independent programmer well worth seeing.
Parker, who played mostly heroines, is fascinating as a shrewish control freak, trying to dominate everybody in town and unlike Hale, unable to see past her own desires and willing to see the town fall apart if she can't get what she wants. While the title of this film indicates that it's a western, it only shows that in the scene where Hatton has an accident while riding Briar out in the open. In spite of the fact that there are a lot of characters and a lot of story for each of them, this flows nicely and ends up being a surprise little sleeper.