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Movie at Murhy Library especially for horse lovers A young boy rides through the surf on a wild black horse as the sun glistens on the water in the next movie at the Murphy Public Library. If you love horses, this is the one to watch. Adventure, beautiful cinematography, and music from the composer who also wrote the music for The Godfather would be a winning combination alone. Add in Mickey Rooney. He won an Oscar nomination for his supporting work. The library will show this G-rated winner on Thursday at 3:15 p.m. for the after school crowd, and again at 6 p.m. Young Alec is traveling on a ship in the sea off North Africa with his father (played in a wonderful cameo by the late country singer Hoyt Axton). He becomes enamored of a fierce black horse locked away on the ship. When the ship sinks, the horse rescues Alec and they bond while marooned on an island. Carroll Ballard directed this film in 1979 and became a legend among animal lovers. The library has shown two other films of his, the cheetahfilled Duma, and Fly Away Home with a gaggle of whooping cranes. Ballard has a way with stories about children who are lost and the animals that help them find their way. He also directed Mickey Rooney to an Oscar nomination as an aging horse trainer. Rooney was 59 at the time he made this film and now in his seventies he is still going strong, most recently in Night at the Museum. But he is always remembered fondly working with the young Elizabeth Taylor, also as the horse trainer, in National Velvet. If you have trouble hearing, this movie may still be enjoyable because the cinematography of Caleb Deschanel transports the viewer with little need for dialogue. Deschanel also worked with Ballard on Fly Away Home. Better still, the sound editor Alan Splet received a Special Achievement Award at the Oscars and he had the enjoyment of editing sounds while Carmine Coppola wrote the music. Coppola is the father of Francis Ford Coppola and the grandfather of Sofia Coppola and Nicolas Cage. But he was also a musician who studied at Julliard, played flute under Toscanini, and composed the scores for the Godfather movies and Apocalypse Now. He uses drums, strings, lots of brass, and even a banjo to pull the viewer along with the boy and horse. And he won a Golden Globe for his efforts. The breathtaking beaches and island where boy and horse frolic are courtesy of the Italian island of Sardinia. The courage is courtesy of the boy and his horse.
You can find out the name of this film by calling the library at 837-2417. Due to copyright rules we are not allowed to state it here.
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