Two Thoroughbreds (1939) User Reviews

Horses are often more understanding than people.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 13 November 2018]

So teenager Jimmy Lyndon finds out when he is adopted by a young colt who simply chooses him as his new owner, pretty much coming out of nowhere. With Aunt and Uncle Marjorie Main and Arthur Hohl as his guardians, he needs someone or something to provide him with the love he's lacking. Indeed, Main and Hohl insult his dead mother, verbally and physically abuse him (particularly Hohl when Lyndon tries to stop him from beating the beloved pony), and don't really seem to care when Lyndon runs away.

A young Joan Leslie plays the nice rich young girl from a nearby ranch who goes out of her way to buy the horse, Sunset), and allows Lyndon to look after him. But when Sunset breaks a leg, it's up to Lyndon to cure him and prevent it being shot. Likeable if sometimes unpleasant (thanks to the cruel characters played by Main and Hohl), this explores the loneliness of Lyndon's character and shows how he opens up to the friendship of other humans thanks to the love that Sunset shows him. Just a tad sentimental here and there, this is an enjoyable programmer that has been done many times over with pretty much every child actor, but Lyndon doesn't have the affected manner of those stars (Rooney, Cooper, Temple, Bartholomew, etc.) and comes off less cloying. That ending, though, I found too contrived and not at all believable.

Pleasant little boy-and-his-horse programmer

[luannjim · 17 July 2002]

This is an RKO B-picture from 1939 that will probably never make it to video, but it just might crop up on Turner Classic Movies or something one of these days. If it does, it's a nice, well-made, unpretentious family-oriented picture that, at just over an hour, certainly doesn't wear out it's welcome.

Jimmy Lydon (a juvenile actor who later starred in the popular "Henry Aldrich" comedies for Paramount) plays David, a teenage orphan who lives on a hardscrabble farm with his nasty, abusive aunt and uncle. When a valuable brood mare is stolen from a neighboring ranch, the mare's foal runs after the thieves but can't keep up. Eventually the young colt wanders tired and hungry into David's barn. David convinces his stingy uncle to let him keep the horse until they can find the owner and see if there's a reward. By the time he finds out where the horse belongs, however, David has grown attached to the animal and can't bring himself to let go. Meanwhile, Uncle Thaddeus is determined to sell the horse or work it to death...

Jimmy Lydon, in his first real role, carries the movie easily, and the rest of the cast is good, too. Marjorie Main as his aunt -- ugly, harsh, and mean -- is certainly a long way from Ma Kettle! Arthur Hohl, as the uncle, is one of those actors you've seen without noticing in countless movies; here he actually gives some human subtlety to a part that is 100% villain. It's a nice job, with probably some credit due to director Jack Hively.

Joan Leslie (billed under her birth name of Joan Brodel) is charming as the daughter of the horse's rightful owner -- and good grief, she looks so YOUNG! (She was only 14 at the time; incredible to think that in only 3 years she'd be playing James Cagney's wife in "Yankee Doodle Dandy"!)