National Velvet film is based on the novel of the same name by Enid Bagnold, published in 1935. This was the first of two films casting Elizabeth Taylor and Anne Revere. This movie was very successful, it won two Oscars, the movie was also dramatized as a one-hour radio play, and in the 1960s, the film was adapted into a television series which aired on NBC. In 2003, National Velvet was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.”

Have a look at these gorgeous pictures of preteen Elizbeth Taylor during the filming of National Velvet in 1944.