Welcome to "Saturday Night at the Movies."

I'm your host, Glenn Holland.

This week's movie is "The Black Stallion," released by United Artists in 1979.

It's based on the 1941 children's novel by Walter Farley, the first of 17 books for young people featuring the black stallion and his offspring.

The film was directed by Carroll Ballard and produced by Francis Ford Coppola, with a beautiful score by Coppola's father, Carmine.

"The Black Stallion" stars Kelly Reno, Mickey Rooney, Teri Garr, Hoyt Axton, Clarence Muse and Michael Higgins.

The title role was played by an Arabian stallion named Cass Ole.

The film opens on a freighter sailing in the Mediterranean off the coast of North Africa in 1946.

On board is a young American boy, Alec Ramsay, who is traveling with his father.

And while his father gambles with other men onboard, Alec explores the ship and discovers a group of men trying to restrain a high-spirited black Arabian stallion and confine him to a stable on board.

After the men leave, Alec puts some sugar cubes on a porthole ledge where the horse finds and eats them before Alec is driven off by one of the men.

That night, in one of the ship's cabins, Alec's father shows him his winnings, including a small image of the horse Bucephalus, a legendary stallion that only the young Alexander the Great was able to master.

Later, while Alec is sleeping, a sudden jolt shocks him awake.

He and his father stumble into the ship's corridor where it becomes clear that the ship is on fire and beginning to sink.

Alec's father tells him to hold on to a rail and wait for him, but Alec hears the panicked neigh of the stallion and goes to free him.

He's pulled away from the horse by the same man as before who also cuts off Alec's life jacket.

Alec's father sees this and attacks the man just before they're both swept away by a wave.

Alec frees the stallion who jumps into the sea as Alec is washed overboard.

He manages to grab hold of the horse's halter ropes before he is knocked unconscious by the explosion that destroys the ship.

The next day, Alec awakes alone on the beach of a desert island, and the black stallion is nowhere in sight.

If I were to tell you that tonight's film is based on a popular children's novel about a young person who forms a bond with a horse other people consider untameable and, spoiler alert, the cast of that film includes Mickey Rooney as the trainer who befriends that young person and helps them train the horse for a climactic race, I wouldn't blame you if the first movie you thought of was not "The Black Stallion."

That synopsis also accurately describes an earlier classic film, "National Velvet," based on the novel by Enid Bagnold and staring Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney, released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1944.

In "National Velvet," Mickey Rooney, as Mi, tells Velvet's younger brother Donald the story about a shipwrecked horse rescued from a deserted island that went on to win England's Grand National steeplechase.

A story based on fact.

In January 1901, an Australian gelding named Kiora was in a ship that sank off the Cape of Good Hope.

Kiora managed to swim to shore at Mouille Point, a beach near Cape Town, South Africa, where he was rescued by a local fisherman.

Kiora went on to compete in the Grand National in 1904, although the race was in fact won by a New Zealand-bred gelding named Moifaa, who later belonged to King Edward VII.

Reporters at the time mixed up Moifaa with Kiora and so said the champion had been rescued on the seashore after escaping from a sinking ship.

In any event, Kiora's unlikely survival after a shipwreck was the historical basis not only for Mi's story but also for Walter Farley's novel "The Black Stallion."

The novel was adapted and turned into the screenplay for the 1979 motion picture.

Despite the similarities between their stories, "The Black Stallion" is a very different sort of movie than "National Velvet."

For one thing, the first half of the film is primarily concerned with the shipwreck and its aftermath on a desert island.

For another, its director, Carroll Ballard, was a very different sort of director than Clarence Brown, who helmed "National Velvet."

Ballard first made his reputation as a film documentarian whose work focused primarily on animals.

He made a series of educational shorts with titles like "Pigs" in 1965 and "The Perils of Priscilla" and "Rodeo" in 1969.

Critic Keith Phipps says of "Rodeo," "It's a brutal depiction of the theme Ballard would make "The Black Stallion" centerpiece.

The delicate, dangerous, and often uneasy balance between humanity and nature."

It's hard to believe that after it was finished in 1977, "The Black Stallion" sat on the shelves at United Artists for two years.

Director Carroll Ballard recalled the attitude among the studio's executives.

"What is this, some sort of an art film for kids?"

It took all of the clout Francis Ford Coppola had in Hollywood, which in the late '70s, after a series of his hit movies, was considerable, to get "The Black Stallion" released and into theaters.

At the same time, it's obvious that "The Black Stallion" was a different sort of family movie.

The film falls clearly into two halves.

In the first half, there is very little dialogue, so images have to carry the story.

After the shipwreck, the film has no dialogue for an astonishing 28 minutes.

Yet many audiences find that time depicting the growing affection between Alec and The Black on the desert island to be the most moving and meaningful part of the film.

Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel, father of actresses Emily and Zooey Deschanel, took the time and trouble to make those scenes unforgettable.

Director Ballard said, "Caleb has a tremendous eye, and he can invent things right on the spot.

Really, some of the neatest shots in the movie are things I didn't even know he was shooting."

Many people expected Deschanel to be nominated for an Academy Award, but in the end he was passed over.

Deschanel, who was 34 at the time, was philosophical.

"I'm disappointed," he said.

"On the other hand, who am I?

I'm just a young punk making his name in the business."

Deschanel's gorgeous cinematography was further enhanced by Carmine Coppola's score and the innovations of sound editor Alan Splet.

These included attaching microphones to the underside of the horse during the racing scene to record the sound of his hoof beats and breathing.

Splet won a Special Academy Award for his sound work for "The Black Stallion."

The horse who portrayed The Black was Cass Ole, a champion Arabian stallion from Texas.

Like most horses, Cass Ole had his mane trimmed to a bridle.

For the movie, he had to wear hair extensions to simulate the long, untrimmed mane of a wild horse.

The natural white markings on his legs and forehead were dyed to produce the pure black felt of the black stallion.

Some of other horses who portrayed The Black in particular scenes had to have their entire bodies dyed black.

Cass Ole learned to express anger by putting his ears back, rearing up and stomping the ground.

But he could also convey affection and change expressions while on cue.

Horse trainer Corky Randall said, "It was amazing.

I never met a horse before who wanted to be an actor."

Two stunt horses owned by Randall, Junior and Star, doubled for Cass Ole for scenes that called for certain types of strenuous activity, like fighting or swimming.

The primary double was Fae Jur, who played The Black at the scene on the island where Alec is attempting to lure him with the seaweed.

His approaches to the boy and his sudden retreats apparently reflected Fae Jur's independent nature.

He also loved to pretend to fight.

And so he was used when The Black fights with another horse before the final race and when he kills the cobra threatening Alec.

By the way, the boy who played Alec, Kelly Reno, was protected in that scene by a large plate of glass.

Kelly Reno was 11 when "The Black Stallion" was shot.

The son of cattle ranchers, he'd been riding horses since the time he could walk.

His ability and his ease with horses was the primary reason he was cast as Alec Ramsay.

As a first-time actor, Reno had some trouble early on getting used to the business of movie making, but he recalled Carroll Ballard telling him, "This is the way it is.

Do it."

"If I didn't get it done," Reno later said, "we'd just do it all over again.

Lines weren't a problem.

I had a lot of them, but they weren't in whole long scenes, and I could put it in other words if the meaning was the same.

That was alright with Carroll."

Reno did most of his own stunts, deferring to a double only for the racing scenes where The Black is running at full speed, and that was only because, he explained, "I was too small to hold him back."

Walter Farley, who wrote the novel "The Black Stallion" and its sequels, was initially concerned that a motion picture couldn't really do justice to his book.

The novel had, and still has, a host of fans, and he had no wish to disappoint them.

But he was very pleased with the movie and acknowledged that it remained true to the novel while also finding its own artistic direction.

He gave the filmmakers the compliment they most wanted.

He said, "They did a beautiful job."

Please join us again next time for another "Saturday Night at the Movies."

I'm Glenn Holland, goodnight.