Our resident movie critic is pulling no punches in his assessment of a star-studded Disney biopic
Secretariat (2010)
directed by Randall Wallace; starring Diane Lane, John Malkovich, Scott Glenn, James Cromwell
Early filmmakers spent decades trying to figure out the most palatable way to depict the life of Jesus, or, more precisely, Jesus himself, to their mostly Christian audiences.
For the most part, the approach was reverential. If the character received a lot of screen time, as he did in Cecil B. DeMille’s King of Kings (1927), the actor would channel the Christ-like traits that came with the brand.
On other occasions, Jesus was shot in the distance, preaching on hillsides, or depicted coyly from behind, as in Ben-Hur (1959), exuding an Obi-Wan Kenobi vibe.
Randall Wallace, the director of Secretariat for Disney Productions, dodged the issue by finding a four-legged Jesus stand-in, unassailable from all angles.
The result was a bright and shiny film about the winner of the 1973 Triple Crown, during which he set time records in all three races and, in the accepted wisdom of the age, provided Americans weary from the trauma of Vietnam and Watergate with a gold-plated hero who never let them down.
Wallace was a devout Christian who was not shy in choosing morality tales for his projects. He wrote Braveheart for Mel Gibson, and directed Gibson in We Were Soldiers, both films brimming with savior themes.
The screenplay credit for Secretariat goes to Mike Rich, whose previous efforts included The Nativity Story, which deals with the thorny questions of Mary’s virgin pregnancy and hotel accommodations in Bethlehem.
For Secretariat, Rich and Wallace take full advantage of the warning label, presented during the end credits, that the whole endeavor was merely “suggested” by William Nack’s comprehensive biography, Big Red of Meadow Stable – Secretariat: the Making of a Champion, published in 1976.
Nack also received a writing credit, which meant he got paid, while surrendering any delusions that the filmmakers would respect the historical record.
Familiar characters – and a familar cast
Even today, more than half a century after the events of the film, the principal characters in the Secretariat drama are as familiar as the casts of The Godfather or Casablanca. Diane Lane (right), Scott Glenn, John Malkovich, and James Cromwell were chosen to play Penny Chenery, Christopher Chenery, Lucien Laurin, and Ogden Phipps.
Unfortunately, the movie hijacks the story of Secretariat and shoehorns only the most unassailable tidbits of truth into a hermetically sealed world infused with thinly veiled religious propaganda.
The chronology of events is fine, names and places accurate enough, and the photography is Hallmark card serene. Beyond such elemental ingredients, however, yards upon yards of whole cloth ensue.
Did you know the Meadow Stable champion two-year-old of 1971 and double Classic winner of 1972 did not exist, at least according to the movie? His name was Riva Ridge.
Did you know that Roger Laurin trained the mythical Riva Ridge before the colt made his first start, quit Meadow Stable to work for Ogden Phipps, and recommended his father, Lucien Laurin, as his replacement? Secretariat would have us believe Bull Hancock (Fred Dalton Thompson) put Lucien’s name in Penny’s ear.
Did you know that jockey Ron Turcotte, a proud French-Canadian from a village in the lumber country of northwestern New Brunswick, spoke with a southern drawl? In the film, the character’s soft Arkansas accent belongs to first-time actor Otto Thorwarth, a real-life rider who won 1,378 races.
The racing industry embraced the production and pounded the drums upon its release. Nack’s book, after all, was among the gospels of the game, along with Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand and Ruffian by Jane Schwartz.
The real Penny Chenery had continued to nurture Big Red’s mystique through the Secretariat Foundation, and the industry had seen fit to present her with the Eclipse Award of Merit in 2005.
Neither did it hurt that Roger Ebert, the esteemed movie critic with four stars and a thumb, was a close friend of Bill Nack’s from their college days in Illinois. This fact was disclosed by Ebert in his review of Secretariat, which drew generally favorable mainstream notices, though none more glowing than his.
“It is a great film about greatness,” Ebert wrote, “the story of the horse and the no less brave woman who had faith in him.”
Off the rails
I guess I saw a different movie back then, and again on recent viewing, although the first 15 minutes of Secretariat promises an interesting domestic drama of an upper-middle-class family with a unique heritage beset by death, illness, and looming financial challenges.
Then, like Groucho stumbling into a ballroom, Malkovich shows up as a cartoonish Laurin, and the whole game goes off the rails.
Lane tries hard to rope the tone back on track, especially in her scenes with Glenn as Penny’s father, who is descending into dementia. (For buffs, the two actors first worked together in Cattle Annie & Little Britches, in 1981, when Lane was 16.)
But even using ‘it’s a Disney movie’ as a fig leaf provides no excuse for the humiliation of the equine actor playing Secretariat. A handsome chestnut in his own right, the personality of the movie’s Big Red is talked about far more often than shown.
At one point, the colt stoically submits to a scene of gang currying and awkward bopping to ‘I’ll Take You There’ by the Staple Singers, then later is given a languid lathering by Lane and groom Eddie Sweat (played with magical Negro integrity by Nelsan Ellis), with ‘Oh Happy Day’, courtesy of the Edwin Hawkins singers, assaulting the eardrums. Wash those sins away, get it?
Nevertheless, the film touched a chord with an intended audience, as expressed by Dove.org, which touts its ‘Faith and Family-Focused Reviews for Today’s Media’, and reported that “Secretariat’s personality and tremendous charisma steal the show entirely; however, there is a very subtle, palpable thread of faith as well.”
About as subtle as a 31-length Belmont romp.
The movie opens with Lane’s voice-over invocation of verses from the 39th chapter of the Book of Job, in which the Old Testament’s God Almighty, having screwed Job royally with an elaborate onslaught of financial ruin and boils, spends the last part of the Bible’s most distasteful allegory hectoring His long-suffering servant with a tedious list of how great He is to have created all sorts of amazing creatures, like the horse.
“In frenzied excitement it eats up the ground,” the Almighty brags. “It cannot stand still when the trumpet sounds. At the blast of the trumpet it snorts, ‘Aha!’ It catches the scent of battle from afar, the shout of commanders and the battle cry.”
Literary strengths of Holy Scripture
Granted, as pull quotes go that’s pretty strong, and accessing the literary strengths of Holy Scripture can be effective, even though this reporter would rather look to Toni Morrison, Yogi Berra, or the French essayist Michel de Montaigne, who did some of his best work after being knocked off a horse.
Andrew O’Hehir of Salon.com picked up on the agonies of Penny in his savaging of the film, noting: “This long-suffering female Job overcomes such tremendous obstacles as having been born white and Southern and possessed of impressive wealth and property, and who then lucks into owning a genetic freak who turned out to be faster and stronger than any racehorse ever foaled. And guess what? She triumphs anyway!”
It may seem small-minded of this amateur film critic to rag on a 14-year-old movie whose heart, according to most viewers, was in basically the right place.
I can account for the general public’s addiction to schmaltz. Still, it never ceases to amaze how low the bar is set among racing aficionados when it comes to the portrayal of their heroes onscreen. The sport deserves a better cinematic version of Secretariat, and so does Secretariat.
“It’s nice that there’s a movie out with his name on it,” wrote Steven Crist in Daily Racing Form, “but a pity that the movie deviates from the truth so much that we never get to the heart of what made him so worth celebrating.”
Secretariat can be found on Disney+ and Amazon Prime
• View all Jay Hovdey’s features in his Favorite Racehorses series
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