The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit Movie Review (1968)

Dean Jones is back again and this time he’s allergic to horses! For this project, I’m focusing on the story itself, including dialogue, character development, any subplots, how a story presents itself, the speed at which it moves, if it slows down unnecessarily, etc.

A Brief Summary

(Taken from D23)

An executive in an ad agency comes up with a great idea; he gets his firm to buy a horse and gives it to his teenaged daughter. She’ll ride it to victory in some horse shows, and the animal, named for the Allied Drug Company product, an indigestion remedy called Aspercel, will get lots of publicity. But it doesn’t quite work out that way. His daughter, Helen, is only an amateur, and it is only with the love and support of her father, trainer Suzie Clemens, and her new boyfriend, Ronnie, that she can win the title of Grand Champion Open Jumper in the prestigious Washington International Horse Show. Released on December 20, 1968.

What works

• I like that the movie opens up by focusing on Fred (Dean Jones) and remains focused on him for more than 10 minutes at the beginning before showing his daughter, Helen; Suzie (the horse trainer); or the horse. Because Fred is the main character (more so than the horse), it really does help introduce his character as well as introduce the first obstacle that he has to overcome: coming up with a marketing campaign to push Aspercel (the pill, not the horse) into the jet-set markets (the classy, dignified groups).
• I like how Suzie talked about how her engagement ended. It was fairly straightforward, but it was the way she talked about it that I liked. How she expressed that what she wanted from marriage was different from what her then-fiance wanted. For me, it wasn’t about what she wanted from the marriage that mattered (when it comes to what I liked about it), but the level of control she had in the scene as she expressed it, and therefore the self-awareness she had as a character. I liked her that much more as a character after that scene than I had before.
• The conversation that Fred has with Mr. Dugan (that Helen overhears) is a good one. It brings back the obstacle that started thoe show, the campaign for Aspercel, and this time the stakes are raised even more.
  • It happens a little before the half-way mark in the movie, so it sets up the big conflict of the movie: where Helen doesn’t want to ride in shows and fights with Ronnie (who ends up telling Fred about it)
    • I do like Ronnie trying to stand up for his girl, it was so cute. And since Fred is the type of dad that he is in the movie, it wasn’t a long conversation nor was it an awkward one, because Fred was able to pick up pretty quickly what Ronnie was saying. It was cute, and it was enough.
• I love that Fred is a good dad. When he’s talking to Helen (after the above-mentioned chat with Ronnie, he says “Well, I don’t care what Mr. Dugan said. You know, a job’s just a job. But what’s here at home…between—(points to Helen and then himself). That’s what’s important. I mean, that’s important. I’m not gonna lose that.” And I love that scene and those lines because he had lost his head a little bit when they first got the horse, and he was trying to get the campaign off the ground. But he got refocused, so by the time this scene came around in the movie, his words were sincere. It really helped his character stay likable.
• There is such a difference in Helen before and after being told she doesn’t have to compete in shows anymore. In fact, while I wasn’t a big fan of Helen as a character (I think it was a personality thing), I do think the actress did a great job in showing Helen’s sinking into depression because of her growing dislike for competing against wanting to help her dad keep his job.
• The fact that the final competition is not just one single day (the specific open jump competition) was such a win for me. It would have been such a let down if the entire competition (including the finals and the jump off, or whatever they called it) had happened all in one day (to cut down on screentime). But having it actually be multiple days, even through montages, keeps the stakes high and the tension up until the end.
  • I loved the montage of the rides Suzie took Aspercel on during the following 6 days of competition leading up to the finals. Especially since Aspercel didn’t win every event. I thought it kept it realistic and also made the “special jump off” that much more fun to watch.
• Shout out to the fact that it’s quiet during most of each riding event that’s shown (when we, the audience, are watching the whole thing, except for when the in-movie audience claps).

What may or may not work

• So when we first meet Helen (Fred’s daughter) and Suzie (S.J. Clemens, the riding instructor), Helen is surrounded by her friends after the riding lesson and they’re trying to convince Helen to ask Suzie about how Helen can get her father to buy her a horse of her own. It’s all very well and good, we get insight into Helen’s relationship with her father, what Helen’s goal is (within the movie), we get a taste of Suzie’s personality, but there’s something about the conversation that just kind of rubs me the wrong way. I can see it happening (in real life), and it’s such a short moment in the movie that it doesn’t affect my watching of the movie or change my overall thoughts about the movie, it just always sticks out to me and not in the best way.
• I like that Helen is nervous (and therefore doesn’t do well during her first event after getting Aspercel), but she’s supposed to be the best rider in her class,
  • Yes, there is a learning period as she and Aspercel work together, but
• Fred’s co-worker Charley (played by The Dick Van Dyke’s Show own Buddy Sorrell, aka Morey Amsterdam) is asked by the police to identify Fred at the police station, but he keeps trying to get photos and cracks jokes. To be honest, other than the fact that Aspie “running away” and Fred and Aspie jumping over a 7-ft fence while on the run and the fact that Helen thinks it was a marketing stunt, that whole sequence wasn’t good.
  • Also I was so frustrated watching Charlie not identify Fred, and just for laughs and photos. LIke sure, have your laughs, get the photos, and then identify the guy so he can go home. What the heck?
  • Also that whole sequence was too long, and could have been done better and have been shorter as well); also where’s Fred’s allergies in all of this. Did the long(ish) exposure to having Aspercel around get him more used to horses and not affect his allergies as much?

Honorable Mentions

• The dog’s name is Herbie, which I find humorous considering the next Disney movie would be “The Love Bug” about a little car (a Volkswagen Beetle) named Herbie starring Dean Jones.
• The horse, Aspercel, cost $5000 dollars, which today would be close to 44k.
• I didn’t know that horses can drink beer, but now I do (and not just because they showed it in the movie/Suzie talking about it briefly, but also because I looked into it online myself

Side Questions

• Thankfully they decided to cut from Suzie beginning to train Aspie for the jump (with ex-fiancee Archer Madison as the coach/trainer) to the beginning of the competition in Washington; but it does have me questioning how the entrances worked for the international competition. Is it because Aspercel already had 2 medals and Suzie won another medal off-screen? How was Suzie able to enter the competition?

Would I watch this movie again?

• Yeah, I would watch this again. It’s not my favorite Dean Jones movie (or Kurt Russell movie for that matter), but it did grow on me over the multiple times that I watched it for this project (twice when I first tried to work on it, and then twice again in the last week or so as I prepped for the video review and this blog post review). I don’t know how often I would watch it, and to be honest, since it’s not available on Disney+ (I have access to a DVD copy of it), that lowers the chances of me choosing to watch this again. But I wouldn’t be opposed to watching this for movie night.

If you’ve seen The Horse in the Gray Flannel Suit, what are some of your thoughts? Share in the comments below!

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