Francis Goes to the Races

Starring: Donald O'Connor, Piper Laurie, Cecil Kellaway, Jesse White, Barry Kelley, Hayden Rorke, Chill Wills (voice)
Directed by: Arthur Lubin
Rating: Not rated
Genre: Comedy, Fantasy
1951

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Peter Stirling (Donald O'Connor) and Francis end up at a horse race track, where they get into trouble with gamblers.

Review:
Tim: I have to say I wasn't the biggest fan of the original Francis. It was a clever idea, but not especially well executed. I liked the idea more than I liked the actual movie. Audiences flocked to the movie, though, so here we are a year later, with the same director and star. I have to admit I didn't have the highest expectations for this film. As expected, it's not an especially good movie. I will say that I thought this film did a few things better than the first movie, so I might give this one a slight edge in quality.

I really liked the plan to move this away from the War movie genre of the first film. This felt like a natural progression of the story- Peter and Francis return from war, and with Peter getting fired at the end of the first movie, we pick up with both of them traveling around. Francis runs into a relative (which was pretty convenient in terms of plot), and Peter tags along. This sets up the rest of the film, which involves a series of miscommunications and hijinks at the race track. I actually thought the overall idea was solid and I enjoyed seeing a change of pace with the plot. It was fun to see Francis and Peter explore the world of horse racing.

Another aspect of Francis Goes to the Races that I enjoyed was that Francis was kind of a jerk. Sure, he had an edge to him in the first film, but he says some downright mean things in this film. I laughed at a few of his lines. I like the idea of Francis being mean- it gives this film some much-needed bite. I do have to say that I'm not the biggest fan of Donald O'Connor. I suppose his acting was fine, but he didn't wow me in either film. Some of this isn't his fault- the script just makes him so incredibly stupid. That hurt the movie a bit in my mind because I just felt very little connection to Stirling. It was fun to see him get into all these sticky situations because of Francis, but with even the smallest amount of intelligence, he could have avoided most of the situations. Maybe other people love the plight of dumb people, but it just got old to me. That being said, this movie did a good job of getting Stirling into a series of challenging situations and was slightly less repetitive than the first film.

The ability of the film to make Francis look like he was talking was again fun to see, even if it's not always perfect. There were a few scenes where it was completely obvious Francis wasn't moving his mouth at all. That killed the magic a little bit. I will say that I enjoyed the scene when Francis was talking with his mouth full- that was a clever add. The scenes with Francis and various horses were well done- I was impressed a few times with how they choreographed certain moments. There was at least one scene where the rope attached to Francis was overtly obvious, though.

Like the first film, I can't claim to be a huge fan of Francis Goes to the Races. While flawed, this film was just slightly less flawed than the original. I would say this was still a lackluster effort, but at least it moved the quality bar in the right direction. That being said, I can't claim to be that excited about the next five Francis films, though.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5


If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Francis