Paul Winfield - Keys
Burl Ives - Carruthers
Sam Fuller (Director)
If Sam Fuller made after school specials...
This is an awesome film! It is 100%, totally ridiculous. The plot is that a young actress finds a stray dog in the Hollywood Hills. She adopts and cares for him. But she notices that the dog has a mean streak in him. Never towards her, but towards some of her friends. She determines that it is an attack dog. She takes the dog to see if it can be tamed. This is where you find out a crazy ass secret about the dog that drives the rest of the story. I won't spoil anything, but I so want to.
Kristy McNichol is very sweet and cute in the picture. But Burl Ives, wow! He chews up the scenery in every shot he is in. His dialogue (as well as most of the characters) is terrible. He has lines like "Ummm sour cream. I love it!" And he plays them to the nines. How good is a movie when Paul Winfield is the best thing in it.
The story is crazy and the set up's are ludicrous. I am not usually one to recommend a "so bad it's good" movie, but I will make an exception for this film. This movie was shelved by Paramount due to its themes that I promised not to talk about.
One nice thing about the movie is the camera work. Some of it. Fuller was getting on in years when he made this film. I think he was trying to stay relevant with this. Funny when his attempts to stay contemporary gets the film banned. Despite all that, Fuller knows where to put his camera and this movie has some great shots in it.
In closing, if you watch this try not to notice the dog's mouth is clearly tapped up when they wanted him to look "mean". You will drive yourself crazy trying to figure out how they did it. Aslo try not to notice how face the blood on the dog looks. I give White Dog ★★★. Check out the Trailer Park to see for yourself. This film is availible via Netflix Watch Instantly and through The Criterion Collection (I don't know how!)
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