The Rocking Horse Winner – 1949 | 94 mins | Drama | B&W

Plot Synopsis

Admirable screen adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s classic short story; a dark fantasy brought credibly to life by writer/director Anthony Pelissier and some insightful performances by the leading stars of British cinema. The film is a true obscure gem, certainly deserving of greater recognition and a wider audience.

A young introverted boy, Paul (John Howard Davies), receives a new and strange-looking rocking horse for Christmas. His imagination for the toy is fired by handyman and ex-stable boy Basset (John Mills), who regales the youngster with yarns of horse racing and teaches him to ride like a jockey – remarking portentously the boy would be late for his own funeral. When his father, Richard (Hugh Sinclair), a card gambler with huge debts, is told by family friend, Uncle Oscar (Ronald Squire), that both he and his spendthrift wife (Valerie Hobson) must curb their squandering ways – the house seems to whisper menacingly to Paul “we need more money”. When his father loses his job, the family find themselves on the verge of bankruptcy with bailiff’s calling regularly; Paul’s mother is resigned to visiting the pawnbroker. A solution to their financial problems arrives in the shape of Paul; the lad develops an uncanny knack of predicting race winners with alarming accuracy, whilst furiously riding on his rocking horse ‘to luck’. His Uncle Oscar and Basset unwittingly exploit the boy’s talents but there is tragedy waiting around the corner. Despite becoming fabulously wealthy, his family squander the money just as quickly as he earns it; soon Paul exhausts himself trying to keep pace with the adult’s greed for another winner.