The Rainbow Jacket (1954)

I quite enjoyed this slightly over-long tale of a young, aspiring jockey. There isn't much about the nags that "Georgie" (Fella Edmonds) doesn't know and he yearns to get a race. That might just prove possible when he encounters disgraced former champion "Sam" (Bill Owen) at a meeting where he successfully calls the result. Next thing, he's got a job as a stable boy where he could get a ride for the wealthy "Mr. Logan" (Robert Morley). He is a loyal young man who really only wants to help his mother (Kay Walsh) and now, to repay his mentor. It's the latter man who might put a spanner in his works, though - he has got into some trouble and now needs a "favour" from his young protegée. Just managing to get away with that, we just know there will be more unscrupulousness to come - but maybe, just maybe, "Sam" might just grow a pair and save the young man from having to follow in his inauspicious footsteps? Basil Dearden has assembled a solid cast here with an on-form Morley, Wilfrid Hyde-White very much playing to type and a few regulars like Sid James and Michael Trubshawe in there too. Edmonds does fine as the engaging and honourable young lad and by the conclusion, I suspect everyone wanted a few quid on his horse. Sure, it's all a bit predictable but so many of these films were just designed to take our attention from the post-war ravages that still dogged most of daily life in Britain. This one does that quite engagingly and is worth a watch.