I searched the topics but couldn't find anything on this, and I surely thought there would be.
I noticed that Alec seems to have - what sounds, at least - like a slight stutter at times throughout the film. Did the actor really have a stutter, or was this done just for the movie? Just curious. :)
P.S. Best movie ever. ;D
Not in the books!
Kelly Reno was too young and acted autistic or mentally challenged, drove me crazy when I first saw the movie and still drives me crazy to this day.
Alec Ramsey was in high school not ten....
When casting needs a child star who can ride a wild horse bareback without falling off, don'tcha think it cuts down the pool of applicants a bit? <groan> So it was as well, to some extent, with the other movie I've seen Kelly Reno in: Brady's Escape. I'd rather take this daunting skill into account before nitpicking his speech.
Furthermore, I'm quite content to see him as a quiet boy, in whom still waters run deep-- one whose mind could be enriched rather than driven insane by weeks of confinement to a desert island with only a horse to keep him company. This, and the fact that he never got over it, is what the film is about. He had an experience and a relationship that could not be communicated to other people, yet developed in him tremendous love and determination. Whether this character was Kelly's own idea or the director's, I think that he was effective.
By the way, I've just seen "The Life of Pi", which shares many of the same themes and characteristics, including widely applauded scenes with little dialogue but breathtaking cinematic beauty. But the animal which keeps Pi company after his shipwreck, and which he says saved his life, is even more dangerous, intractable, and hard to love: a Bengal tiger. No fan of The Black Stallion should miss it.
I thought he did an amazing job for his first acting role. The slight stutter rang true for a young kid trying to get his point across. Consider that aside from the horse, he only ever really interacted with adults, so he was adapting to their world.
shareI was wondering the same thing. Looks like none of these posters quite answered the question. I know Kelly Reno was in very few movies before he quit acting, so it's hard to tell by seeing something else he was in to compare it to. From what I've read on IMDB, I don't think he was a professionally trained actor, so he may have had difficulty with his lines, and with his diction. Or, was it just acting, being in character? On that island, he spent a lot of time without any other human contact, so he might have gotten "rusty" at talking to people. Then again, he stuttered a bit when talking to his dad. In any case, you'll notice he's not exactly given many lines to say in the film.
Can anyone here who was involved in the production of the film attest to this one way or the other?
There is a YouTube video interview of him as an adult out there in YouTube land. It's been a while since I've seen it, but I don't remember him stuttering. He did stutter in the film quite a bit though.
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