The best of Elizabeth Taylor

'National Velvet'
Reuters/MGM/Handout

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Ty Burr, Globe Staff
“National Velvet” (1944)

The movie’s about a horse, but it was a hit because of the 12-year-old Taylor, lit up with unearthly passion for the nag from nowhere she turns into a steeplechase champion. It was in Technicolor and that mattered, not just for the child star’s lavender eyes but for the sense that both character and actress were bursting into a new world of overripe sensation.