text: In "Lassie Come Home," "National Velvet," and "The Courage of Lassie," Elizabeth Taylor was eleven years old  Nevertheless, her charm and beauty were extraordinary, and what she lacked in talent and experience was well hidden in a fine production that was nominated for five Academy Awards <br /><br />As horse-trainer or dog-owner, as spurned wife or mistress, Liz is a female who is absorbed in the giving and receiving of love: devotion to the object of passion is the center of her life Little Liz lavishes love on horses and dogs with remarkable intensity Ecstatic; a dreamer with a turbulent emotional life, persistent, the young Liz dedicates herself to the prize-winning horse the way she later devotes herself to men<br /><br />Anticipating her later images of young sex goddess, Liz as Velvet is both saintly and mature Howard Barnes, in the New York Herald Tribune, called her a child who 'lights up with the integrity of a great passion.' <br /><br />Directed by Clarence Brown with loving attention to detail, the movie that made her a star is a big bestseller from another era set in Sussex, England, where Velvet Brown, a butcher's daughter, teams with a vagabond teenager named Mi Taylo (Mickey Rooney) to train for competition a horse she's won in a raffle <br /><br />From the coastal plains with its beaches, to the rolling hills, thatched cottages, and miles of country walks, "National Velvet" is the product of a bygone era in movie-making <br /><br />Following closely the structure of the popular Enid Bagnold novel, the movie is part horse story, part family portrait: scenes of training and riding are balanced by cozy family scenes, vignettes about young love and sermons from Mom on the virtues of courage and endurance<br /><br />The Browns are a noble version of Hollywood rustic Dedicated to a sober work ethic, they live quiet, exemplary lives Mrs. Brown (Anne Revere) is the very spirit of plain-folk wisdom; the spokeswoman for common sense and fair play, she knows well enough not to silence the semi-hysterical energy of her horse-crazy daughter, and she lets the girl have her dream<br /><br />Anne Revere won an Oscar as Velvet's mother, as did editor Robert J. Kern