mark.waltz Brassy acting, bright colors, overflowing comedy and excessive emotion was the name of the game in their comedies of the 1960's and 70's. They produced a style of film for 20 years from 1959's "The Absent Minded Professor" through the last of the "Love Bug" series that scream "take it down a notch". It's well meaning family fare, but the films more often than not quickly date, having an attitude that if you watch it for five minutes after missing the credits, you can tell it's Disney. They aren't, in most cases, bad films, but there's no doubt that they just went a bit too far, having themes or settings, that weren't always the dreamland of "Mary Poppins" or "Bedknobs and Broomsticks".Disney films introduced me to the smarmy businessman and his "yes men", with "Mr. Big" usually Keenan Wynn, but here the snarky Fred Clark. Among his yes men are Morey Amsterdam and Dean Jones, both of them speaking as if talking to the third balcony, hopefully not swallowing flies as they brayed their lines with overly wide mouth movements. Jones is the too busy to notice father of Ellen Javov, a shy teenager interested in horses. He's too busy pill pushing, here trying to come up with a new slogan for a huge pill (purpose unclear) and names a horse he buys for Javov after that obnoxious pill. To get a promotion to VP, Jones pushes his daughter to win three medals to get to DC and finds himself up against his daughter's teacher, the beautiful Diane Baker. Superdad Jones gets in over his head, and hopefully learns to do these things out of love for his daughter, and calm down his frenetic acting before moving onto Broadway for the upcoming musical "Company".In spite of the frantic pacing and in your face acting, this turns out to be rather entertaining, if not slightly overlong. Sadly, Javov would die tragically at a very young age (having only made one film), and she's more subtle than many of the veteran players. Rambunctious Kurt Russell plays her all American boyfriend, with Lurene Tuttle amusing as Jones' feisty aunt. Veteran character actress Nydia Westman has a cute cameo as the old lady in the elevator looking for the tenth floor. Typical farce, chase sequences and comical chaos helps this move along, although a 15 minute trimming might have helped this be a bit tighter.

bkoganbing Making a play on the Gregory Peck/Jennifer Jones film of the Fifties, The Horse With The Grey Flannel Suit is about an advertising man who thinks of a brilliant idea to help his daughter with her horseback riding hobby. A most expensive proposition if one owns one's own horse as Ellen Janov's riding instructor Diane Baker suggests.The suit is Dean Jones and no one tries to put the horse in a suit. His idea which he pitches to the owner of the advertising firm is to buy a horse and train it as a show horse and have it win the junior riding championship in Washington, DC. Along the way and quite by accident with Dean Jones discovering it rather uncomfortably, they find out that the horse is a jumper which opens all kinds of new possibilities.Jones and Baker are a nice fit in the leads and Ellen Janov is good as the daughter who does come over like a real kid. Maybe she was just a kid and it wasn't acting. Her career was over shortly and I read with sadness that she died in a fire in the next decade.This film was also the farewell big screen appearance of Fred Clark who mastered the slow burn as if he understudied Edgar Kennedy. Clark plays Jones's boss who is inpatient to see results in the form of publicity. The horse's name is Aspercel which is a generic tummy pain medication they're trying to sell. I wish the film had more of Morey Amsterdam who plays a rather madcap ad man.The Horse In The Grey Flannel Suit may yet see a remake from The Magic Kingdom. I can see Jim Carrey for instance in the Dean Jones role. Until then, this will do nicely.

hadjiquest79 I saw this film from the library. I loved it. This is a Dean Jones and "Herbie" flick. But this Herbie which I am talking about is his dog, not his car. Ellen Janov portrayed the teenage daughter, Helen Bolton. Kurt Russell did a really good part as Ronnie Gardner, Helen Bolton's boyfriend. Dean Jones is really fun to watch. He portrays Fred Bolton, who works for a pharmaceutical company. Aspercel is the name of the horse. I love the setting of this film. Like all Disney Classic live movies, I find this one enjoyable. I've always loved Dean Jones and Kurt Russell. Suzy Clemens, portrayed by Diane Baker is the equestrian instructor. She teaches how to ride a horse. If you see this movie, you'll be entertained.

moonspinner55 The whole set-up of this contrived Disney family film (ad-exec gets his teenage daughter a horse because she "wants one more than anything else in the world") is just an excuse to film the big climactic horse-show at the end. All the other ingredients (the ad campaign for the stomach pill, Kurt Russell as a potential boyfriend for the youngster, Lloyd Bochner as a potential rival for Dean Jones over the affections of Diane Baker) are shelved near the end simply to showcase the horse. Over half the picture is padding, and worse: it is whiny and obnoxious. The kid is the ninny-sort who cries on the couch with a dog in her arms, and as usual she gets her way. * from ****