Okay, so it's the newborn colt playing the title character, but still pretty risky and yet amusing. Sad to say though that this programmer is not a good version of the Anna Sewell novel written many decades before yet set in modern times. Monogram and other poverty row movie studios were attempting to film classic novels, among them besides this "The Scarlet Letter", "Vanity Fair", "Jane Eyre" and "Oliver Twist", and these versions are considered to be poor representations of their source.
For one thing, this version of "Black Beauty" is badly filmed and edited, with characters talking for extended periods of time and not even seen on camera. The riding sequences are obviously faked outside long shots, and the actors mostly speak in the worst southern drawl imaginable. Esther Ralston is decent in the lead however, but leading man Alexander Kirkland is genuinely weak. The horses credited before the actors in the opening are much more memorable. Much more melodramatic than it should be, this is not for literature purists, and with other versions out there easily avoided.
For one thing, this version of "Black Beauty" is badly filmed and edited, with characters talking for extended periods of time and not even seen on camera. The riding sequences are obviously faked outside long shots, and the actors mostly speak in the worst southern drawl imaginable. Esther Ralston is decent in the lead however, but leading man Alexander Kirkland is genuinely weak. The horses credited before the actors in the opening are much more memorable. Much more melodramatic than it should be, this is not for literature purists, and with other versions out there easily avoided.
