What the hell ever happened to Kristy McNichol?Once upon a time many,MANY moons ago,you couldn't dump Pop Rocks into your yap without seeing her in a teenage sex comedy like "Little Darlings",or a dramatic turn like this lost film by the director of the fantastic "Shock Corridor"(1963).Fuller really went above and beyond the call of duty here,showing his audience that even dogs can hate!We've seen dogs as Dracula's pets,hounds of hell;we've even see them have flashbacks as in "The Hills Have Eyes Pt. 2"(1982).Now in the very same year we've got a loverly white shepherd that is just that:a WHITE shepherd,trained to attack all tinted chappies on sight.Fuller never made another American movie after documenting this TRUE story written by Romain Gary,after it happened to he and his wife,actress Jean Seberg.Although this is near to impossible to find a decent copy of here in the States,you really oughta give it your best,as this one is CLASSIC.
Don't be black around this white dog.He's liable to chew you like snausages.
Julie(Kristy)takes in a stray white German Shepherd after accidentally hitting it with her car,and though the dog seems loving and protective of the starlet at first,it soon reveals that it don't very much like bloody darkies,thank you(!).While Julie wonders where her new pet has disappeared to,he's sneaking off to murder unsuspecting men of colour,returning with a muzzle full of soulful blood.Being an actress,and cringing at the thought of the beautiful beast being put down just because he's a little prejudiced,she decides to take him to Noah's Ark,a training facility for animals used in movies.The director,Mr. Carruthers(Burl Ives!),tells her that once a dog has been trained for such a heinous purpose,it is virtually impossible to untrain.Julie's only hope is the top trainer,a man named Keys(Paul Winfield),who takes on the task as a personal challenge,albeit a very dangerous one,as he himself is black.
Carruthers(Burl Ives) exclaims:"You can't untrain an attack dog,baby!"
The dog refuses the training at the outset,escaping the facility to murder a brother in a church in the middle of the night.This latest obstacle only sharpens Keys' resolve,and he works the dog even harder to try and break it of its propensity for hate crimes(!).Julie runs into the previous trainer of the dog,an elderly gentleman and his granddaughter,and when the man boasts that the dog is the finest WHITE dog she will ever come across,she calls him a son of a bitch something like 35 times in a row,and assures the cracker that the dog has been cured of his racism!Keys,certain that his training has paid off,schedules one final test to prove the dog is now bruvvah-friendly.The dog runs to Julie,and is gentle and loving as she remembers him.But when it notices Carruthers,it turns and charges him,mauling him to the ground,and forcing Keys to put the animal down with a well-placed bullet.The trainer and the starlet,defeated,take the badly injured businessman to the hospital.
Sure,he's biting you,soul brother,but he hates the taste of you in his mouth!
Unbelievably NEVER released in the States,and only shown on HBO a few times,this would yet today be a hard pitch to a major movie company for the blunt truth of life contained within its pages.White dogs were actually very common in the heyday of the Ku Klux Klan,and I'm sure a few are still out there snarling at the first sight of a black guy somewhere.I've read reviews of the film that purport the dog's racism was turned to whites,as it attacked Burl Ives at the climax of the picture,but I'm gonna go ahead and call bullshit,as it happily gave affection to McNichol just seconds beforehand,who is also white.Maybe the poor creature got sick of hearing Ives singing "Have a Holly,Jolly Christmas" on the set.We may never know.
Kristy's so cute when she stands diametrically opposed to animal racism.
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