Devil on Horseback
Devil on Horseback is a 1954 British sports drama film directed by Cyril Frankel and starring Googie Withers, John McCallum and Jeremy Spenser.Then, after a half-fantastic scene between the drunken Irishman and the boy, the film concentrates on the breaking-in of Moppy, which it does very well, capturing with remarkable success the sharpness of misery which is only possible at fourteen.The superiority of the latter part of the film is due largely to Jeremy Spenser's greater aptitude for more emotional acting; the earlier scenes are weakened by his inability to make the boy both cocksure and sympathetic.The faking of the racing scenes is at times uncomfortably apparent; but the almost documentary re-creation of the atmosphere of the training stables and the morning runs on the heath is strikingly successful."[2] Kine Weekly wrote: "Wholesome, uninhibited racing melodrama, set in authentic and picturesque surroundings … The picture covers a lot of territory and carries quite enough weight, but, although it puffs a bit as it reaches the straight, it seldom relxes its grip on its audience and ends in grand style.