Entirely decent, honest Australian film - the sort of bread and butter picture they made in Hollywood and Britain, benefiting from some location work of the Melbourne Cup and at a stud. Strong cast toom, briskly handled. Decent characters... but too much stuff happening.
How's this... there's a horse training for the big race, George Randall and Muriel Steinbeck are a couple running a stud, Nonie Peifer and Shirley Hall are daughters and Charles Tingwell, then James Workman (later a top writer) and his son Alan White come out, then White falls for Peifer who winds up in a wheelchair, then White kind of shoots through but doesn't, then Tingwell gets in gambling debt and brings vampy singer Georgie Sterling to the farm, and then money goes missing and they think it might be White and then its Tingwell, and Hall cracks wise, and Workman falls for White, and Peifer plays a concerto, and the horse wins.
Phew
Look none of this is bad in itself it just needed focusing. Why have Steinbeck and Randall, you could just have one? Indeed, you could consolidate that person and the daughter. And you could give everything Tingwell does to White. Why have Sterling in the film? She should have been a threat to Peifer.
The film also pulls its punches on the villainy of White and Tingwell. White still offers to marry Peifer and isn't bad - why not have him as a cad? Why not have Tingwell be really bad?
Lots to admire and enjoy. Very competent. Just needed another draft.
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