Alan Ladd showed a flair for comedy in Lucky Jordan so this piece of horseracing whimsy comes as a disappointment. It would seem to be a sure thing - Ladd is a gambler who has to pay of a bookie in X number of days or he'll be killed, so he and his partner (William Demarest, ideal) buy a race horse and get a jockey to ride it. So far so good - then the jockey has to go to school and is a pain to a school teacher (Gail Russell) so Ladd busies himself with the school teacher.
The main problem with this film is structural - we want it to be about Ladd getting up to wacky shonky tough guy shenanigans and being charmed by Russell, but the plot of the film is really about this jockey kid being wild and Ladd and Russell having to pull him into line. Now that sort of plot would work if the jockey was a little girl or something - it's the plot of Little Miss Marker - because then you'd have the three of them forming a family, which is holistic. But here the jockey is a 17 year old and the plot evolves into a romantic triangle with the jockey loving Russell and Russell loving Ladd and Ladd loving Russell - but only after he finds out that she loves him. So the poor old jockey has to be shunted out of the way. Another problem is Ladd doesn't have that much to do - the jockey gets more screen time.
Russell is beautiful and certainly has a tragic presence - many tragic stars you can't tell from their persona but looking at Russell on screen you just get the feeling it's all going to end badly for her in real life unless someone came along to protect her (which is unfortunately what happened). She and Ladd ought to be a good combination - a tough guy and a sweet girl - but it doesn't work here since Ladd isn't really given the chance to be tough, or Russell the chance to be that sweet (she needed to look after little kids or something).
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