Susan Granger’s review of “Secretariat” (Disney)
“Secretariat” comes charging onto the screen with all the trappings of a rip-roaring yarn. It grabs you and doesn’t let go.
In 1969, Denver housewife/mother Penny Chenery Tweedy (Diane Lane) agreed to take over her ailing father’s Virginia-based Meadow Stables. Through the toss of a coin, she became owner of an incredibly promising, chestnut colt, a potential champion. But Big Red, as he was called, needed an experienced trainer, so she recruited initially reluctant Lucien Laurin (John Malkovich), an eccentric, cantankerous French Canadian.
Diane Lane buries herself deep inside the character, conjuring up an incandescent image of a powerful, passionate, competitive woman who displays great courage and dignity mixed with raw, barely contained emotion. John Malkovich is magnetic and the supporting cast includes Fred Thompson, James Cromwell, Scott Glenn, Nelsan Ellis and real-life jockey Otto Thorwarth as Secratariat’s jockey Ron Turcotte.
Scripted by Mike Rich, directed by Randall Wallace and photographed by Dean Semler, it’s stunningly successful both as uplifting, crowd-pleasing entertainment and a peek into sexist world of Thoroughbred racing. If you liked “Seabiscuit,” this is the film you’ve been waiting for.
Five different horses play Secretariat: four Thoroughbreds and a quarter-horse. Every day, wranglers carefully painted the real Secretariat’s three distinctive white “socks,” facial white stripe and star on each of the horses.
Great movies transport the audience and this one had me cheering in the grandstands for the 1973 Triple-Crown winner. The stallion’s 31-length victory in the Belmont Stakes is still believed to be the greatest horse-racing performance of all time, often listed among the Top 100 sports feats of all time by any athlete. You can even glimpse the ‘real’ Penny Tweedy as part of the crowd at Belmont. And what the movie doesn’t tell you is that, after he died, it was discovered that Secretariat’s heart was about twice as big as a normal horse’s, the largest of any Thoroughbred on record.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Secretariat” is a sentimental, inspiring 9. As satisfying as it is stimulating, “Secretariat” will make you stand up and cheer.
