This film really could have been much better with some deeper writing involving the friendships between two jockeys, one white and one black. Wesley Barry and Onest Conley are inseparable, and the way they treat and confuse in each other is fine until halfway through the film when Barry gets a little too fancy, as does Conley, rejecting his own black friends in an uppity manner yet accepting however Barry treats him. It's a confusing twist in the friendship, quite maddening and out of the blue, with Conley hiding his hurt in front of his new girlfriend, Mildred Washington, playing a character named Purple, even though he's just done the same thing to his own fellow black friends.
Judith Barrett plays Barry's girlfriend, that is until the rich Pauline Garon comes along and turns Barry into a snob. Robert Homans gives a stereotypical performance as a cliched Irishman, Barrett's blarney reciting father, while Madame Sul-Te-Wan is a bit more restrained as Conley's mother. The idea that this is an integrated story with equal time spent between the white characters and black characters really could have been delightfully liberal during a conservative and troublesome era, and at least it is rather brave that Tiffany studios, an independent B, attempted something different, but 90 years later, even with the reality that Barry in all reality would play Judas to his friend, something feels missing, and that makes this film a disappointment and missed opportunity.
Judith Barrett plays Barry's girlfriend, that is until the rich Pauline Garon comes along and turns Barry into a snob. Robert Homans gives a stereotypical performance as a cliched Irishman, Barrett's blarney reciting father, while Madame Sul-Te-Wan is a bit more restrained as Conley's mother. The idea that this is an integrated story with equal time spent between the white characters and black characters really could have been delightfully liberal during a conservative and troublesome era, and at least it is rather brave that Tiffany studios, an independent B, attempted something different, but 90 years later, even with the reality that Barry in all reality would play Judas to his friend, something feels missing, and that makes this film a disappointment and missed opportunity.