My Old Man

Ernest Hemingway's short story, originally filmed in 1950 as "Under My Skin", was about a crooked jockey hoping to reform for the sake of his worshipful son; this TV-adaptation--designed to showcase teenage star Kristy McNichol--changes the son to an estranged daughter and the jockey to a penniless horse-trainer trying to recapture his former glory. The two characters butt heads but don't seem to share the same temperament--it's all fabricated. Kristy's character lives in an isolated bubble, with no friends, no background, and an interest in horses which rears itself up suddenly. It might have been a more tolerable family drama without Dominic Frontiere's dripping, cloying strings on the soundtrack, not to mention a ready-made love-interest for the father (and mama for the girl) in a hash-slinging waitress who has just purchased a beautiful house in the country. This is strictly a racetrack fairy tale, and not a very convincing one at that. One of McNichol's few mediocre performances; Warren Oates crinkles his eyes and bellows in appropriate fashion.

Drunk/bum/loser, Frank Butler, re-unites with his teen-age daughter, Jo, whom he hasn't seen in years. Jo has just lost her mother so Frank takes her under his wing and introduces her to the horse racing circuit which hasn't treated Frank kindly over the past few years. As Frank eases his way back into the equine fraternity he finds things aren't going to go to good for him because of a scandal he was involved in some years ago. Finally, he and Jo manage to pick up a horse of their own and enter him in a race, but tragedy strikes again just before the big event which leaves Jo all by herself with a heavy burden. I enjoyed this film, but it was no big shakes: it's been done before in other guises.