{"id":3896,"date":"2020-02-04T13:30:21","date_gmt":"2020-02-04T20:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/?p=3896"},"modified":"2020-02-04T13:30:21","modified_gmt":"2020-02-04T20:30:21","slug":"40th-film-anniversary-behind-the-scenes-part-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/40th-film-anniversary-behind-the-scenes-part-5\/","title":{"rendered":"40th film anniversary. Behind the scenes part 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cowboys & Indians<\/a> magazine. Stories from the making of “the Black Stallion” (1979)<\/p>\n

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Stop and get a treat for yourself!!!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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The Black Stallion at 40: Behind the Scenes<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
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BY Elizabeth Kaye McCall <\/span><\/p>\n

November 25, 2019<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Production Assistant Tim Farley\u2019s Flashbacks on Filming.<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cI met director Carroll Ballard when he and my dad were looking for an Arabian stallion to play The Black,\u201d says Tim Farley, who was still in college, finishing a photography degree at Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, California when his father Walter Farley\u2019s beloved novel, The Black Stallion<\/em>, began its transformation to the big screen.<\/p>\n

\u201cI went to talk to Carroll and to Fred Roos, the producer, to see if I could get a job. Of course, they said I could have a job. They didn\u2019t say they would pay me, at first. I was a 21-year-old kid who knew nothing about making movies,\u201d says Farley laughing.<\/p>\n

He would end up skipping graduation ceremonies to start on the film, which began production in Toronto in 1977.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first job was working in the office,\u201d Farley recalls. \u201cThe film was in preproduction at that point. One of my assignments was to make copies of all the script changes for the crew. However, I also ran off an extra set of copies to send to my dad. So, he would send them back with all these comments on them, of course, and they were like, \u2018Where is he getting all this information?\u2019 I was his mole! They weren\u2019t real happy about that, to tell you the absolute truth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, it brought benefits. \u201cActually, my dad came up with the sequence in the jockey\u2019s room before The Black races. It became a humorous scene in the movie, because they kept adding weight to this little kid. The way the script was originally written had Alec sneaking weight into his pockets, or putting on a weight belt, or something. My dad said, \u2018Nobody would do that. The officials add all the handicap weight jockeys must carry. They would never sneak<\/em> weight.\u2019 He came up with some helpful ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Farley smiles when he thinks back on it. \u201cIt was fascinating driving to the set daily with Mickey Rooney in Toronto, the location for our 1940s New York scenes. Mickey had been in a long career slump, but The Black Stallion<\/em> brought him an Oscar nomination and he returned to the stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the production went overseas, Farley went too.<\/p>\n

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“From set of the Black Stallion when I was 22. Don’t know the photographer, it was sent to my Dad [Walter Farley] and on his office wall,” says Farley.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe most memorable days for me were on the island. It took us months to get some of those shots,\u201d he says. \u201cMy screen credit was \u2018production assistant,\u2019 but with only about 30 of us on crew [there], I did a little bit of everything. It was shot almost like a documentary, with a small crew on the Mediterranean island of Sardinia.<\/p>\n

A small crew and not many \u2014 make that no \u2014 creature comforts: \u201cIt was exciting, even though we had to take cold showers!\u201d Farley says. \u201cWorking on those beach sequences, there were no hotels. We stayed in an empty school with cold-water showers. Every once in a while you\u2019d see a tourist come through for an hour or two, but we were pretty far out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The remote location brought unique challenges. \u201cWe had to do a lot of tracking shots, like The Black running down the sand bar, especially when Alec\u2019s learning to ride and keeps falling off. We had to kind of wing it. We couldn\u2019t say, \u2018Oh, we need some dolly track here for 500 yards and we have to go 30 miles an hour. So, how are you going to do that?\u201d<\/p>\n

The answer was improvise: \u201cThey came up with a Citro\u00ebn 2CV. It\u2019s like a French version of a Volkswagen Beetle. We took the doors off and the seats out. We used that as our [camera] dolly to race down the beach. The horse was going pretty fast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rarely without his own camera, Farley often photographed the star horse, Cass-Ol\u00e9. \u201cHe and Kelly had a good relationship because they spent so much time together before the movie started. But Cass-Ol\u00e9 was kind of like the character of The Black. He was very independent, knew he was gorgeous, and that everybody loved him. He\u2019d take control if you\u2019d let him. On the other hand, Cass was gentle with Kelly. Corky Randall trained Cass for months to be able to work him at liberty and have him listen to voice commands.<\/p>\n

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” Dad [Walter Farley] editing my pix after getting back.<\/span>\u00a0[from filming],” says Farley<\/p>\n

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\u201cI was one of the lucky people there watching a young Kelly Reno portray Alec Ramsay together with Cass-Ol\u00e9 as The Black. Those scenes on the beach with the magic of the boy and the horse getting to be friends on the island really did happen,\u201d Farley says. \u201cAlso, at the end of the movie, where you see that big double rainbow and the horse rolls on the ground and Kelly rolls on the ground \u2014 it was totally impromptu. It\u2019s during the credit roll at the very end of the film.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

When filming finished, coming home took some adjustment. \u201cIt was almost like in the movie \u2014 when Alec arrives back in America \u2014 that first sequence when he\u2019s in a real bathroom with running water. That\u2019s kind of what happened to us too,\u201d Farley remembers.<\/p>\n

Forty years later, the memories from those months working on the film are still vivid and exciting.\u00a0 \u201cLearning something new every day … you never knew who might show up \u2014 Harrison Ford, Matt Dillon, Francis [Ford Coppola], even Scorsese. I met Fellini at Cinecitt\u00e0 [Studios, where the shipwreck scene was filmed in Rome].\u201d<\/p>\n

But the best part, Farley says, was \u201cjust being part of this small family that included the wonderful horses and horsemen, from cowboys to Hollywood.\u201d<\/p>\n

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More about The Black Stallion<\/h3>\n

The Black Stallion: A Heartwarming Epic For The Ages<\/a><\/p>\n

The Black Stallion\u2019s Accidental Screenwriter<\/a><\/p>\n

The Black Stallion at 40 With Stunt Coordinator Glenn Randall<\/a><\/p>\n

The Black Stallion\u2019s Secret Weapon<\/a><\/p>\n

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All images: Courtesy Tim Farley.<\/em><\/p>\n

(Lead image) Tim Farley trying his hand at liberty work rearing the Black Stallion that starred in the long-running (now closed) Arabian Nights Dinner Attraction in Orlando. Walter Farley was close friends with the family and gave permission for the black stallion namesake to only be used there. \u00a0Curious tidbit. Glenn Randall Sr. (Corky\u2019s father) did the original horse training at Arabian Nights.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cowboys & Indians magazine. Stories from the making of “the Black Stallion” (1979) Stop and get a treat for yourself!!!   The Black Stallion at 40: Behind the Scenes BY Elizabeth Kaye McCall November 25, 2019 Production Assistant Tim Farley\u2019s Flashbacks on Filming. \u201cI met director Carroll Ballard when he and my dad were looking …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3448,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,637],"tags":[567,281,540,278,67,463,71,543,81,531,469,89,462,461,470,129,50],"class_list":["post-3896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","category-movie","tag-black-stallion","tag-bucephalus","tag-caleb-deschanel","tag-carroll-ballard","tag-cass-ole","tag-clarence-muse","tag-corky-randall","tag-doug-claybourne","tag-film","tag-francis-ford-coppola","tag-fred-roos","tag-kelly-reno","tag-mickey-rooney","tag-terri-garr","tag-tom-sternberg","tag-trainer","tag-walter-farley"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3896"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3898,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3896\/revisions\/3898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theblackstallion.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}