- Actors: Valerie Hobson, John Mills, John Howard Davies
- Directors: Anthony Pelissier
- Format: PAL
- Classification: PG
- Studio: RANK
- Run Time: 88 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B000KINMS4
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 7,153 in Video (See Top 100 in Video)
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Product Description
In London, the teenager Paul Grahame (John Howard Davies) lives with his upper class but financially broken family. His wasteful mother Hester Grahame (Valerie Hobson) is a compulsive buyer, spending all the family money in new expensive dresses, jewels and objects for their home. His father Richard Grahame (Hugh Sinclair) is a gambler, losing money in the horse races. His uncle Oscar Cresswell (Ronald Squire) is permanently covering the Grahame family debts. When the servant Bassett (John Mills) is hired, Paul finds that he can predict the winner of the horses' races rocking his wooden horse. Paul asks Bassett to become his partner, betting their money in the races, trying to prove that he is lucky and silencing the permanent whisper of the house needing more money. But the prize is high and fatal.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
I won't duplicate the synopsis that Westley has already provided, but I would add don't be mislead by the title of this film, nor by the fact that it stars Britain's leading child star of the time, John Howard Davies (only ten years old when he made the film in 1949). This is definitely not a kid's picture. In fact, watching this would give some sensitive children nightmares for years. Given an "A" certificate by the BBFC (the most adult rating they could have given it at the time) it may well have been rated "X" if it had been released three years later. Also don't be mislead by the cheery opening, for the film soon develops into a compelling and haunting supernatural drama that plays like a missing segment out of "Dead Of Night", except that rather than having a haunted mirror or a haunted ventriloquist's dummy, we have here a haunted rocking horse and a boy who rides it becoming inextricably possessed by something unexplainably evil and soul-consuming. To give any more of the plot away would be unfair to those who haven't seen it. But this is a wonderfully made and very moving and emotionally involving British classic that I cannot recommend highly enough. Everything about it is top class...acting; script; direction; photography and music...and the most evil looking rocking horse in film history. Faithfully adapted from the famous short story by D. H. Lawrence, this is a film that will haunt you for the rest of your life and will have you in tears before the end.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
"The Rocking Horse Winner" is adapted from the out-of-print short story by D. H. Lawrence. An upper-middle class family in post-war Britain is strapped for cash and continually spending beyond their means. The mother is played by Valerie Hobson, who starred as Estella a few years earlier in the extraordinary adaptation of David Lean's "Great Expectations." She is impatient with her husband's relatively low wages and wishes continually for more funds, seemingly not caring about the source of the money. Her young son (John Howard Davies, who later produced "Fawlty Towers") hears her pleas and soon is betting on horse racing with the help of their gardener, Bassett (played by the peerless Sir John Mills). Surprisingly, the boy seems to be rather lucky and begins to win, but complications soon arise.
The "Rocking Horse Winner" is not particularly well-known, and it definitely deserves a larger audience. The film is highly enjoyable and unpredictable, with some unexpected eerie and sinister elements. The acting is generally good and somewhat larger than life, although Valerie Hobson portrays the mother in perhaps too unsympathetic a light. A highlight of the film is the demonic rocking horse that the boy receives for Christmas; the scenes with the boy riding it into a frenzy are frighteningly unforgettable, and perhaps more than a bit oedipal in nature. The DVD transfer is quite good, although no subtitles have been recorded - a shame considering the sometimes thick accents of some of the actors. Overall, the "Rocking Horse Winner" is a champion - an unusual, small British film that should be much better known.
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Extras: Three different versions of "Rocking Horse Winner" are included. The most interesting is a 22 minute short film by Michael Almereyda, who later directed the 2000 movie "Hamlet" starring Ethan Hawke. The short is set in the present and stars Eric Stoltz. Filmed in a grainy manner with pixelation used throughout, it's interesting but the acting is often poor and the story is disjointed. The two other versions are audio-only: a reading taken from public radio and excerpts from a libretto opera. Highly unusual extras!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
Hi there
I saw this film with my wife a very long time ago and i thought then it was a very good film and that was before we had videos or dvd recorders so we had to wait for it to shown again to see it again,now we have it in our collection,great film would recommend.
I saw this film with my wife a very long time ago and i thought then it was a very good film and that was before we had videos or dvd recorders so we had to wait for it to shown again to see it again,now we have it in our collection,great film would recommend.
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