I'm not sure White Dog would qualify in the pantheon of great films from the B-movie legend Samuel Fuller, maybe because it lacks the austere polish of Pickup on South Street or the perfectly outrageous execution of Shock Corridor. But as a work of full-bodied entertainment, it does its job far exceeding expectations. I wouldn't say I was going into White Dog looking for great art, however, as its premise- about a white dog that's been trained since it was a puppy to attack black people based on visual association- is one that invites a lot of immediate guffaws and possible gasps. It even got banned for a short while in some areas, including the United States, where it's not even on video. Luckily, it played a theater recently in New York, and seeing it with an audience is even a greater thrill, as Fuller's direction and timing with the characters, as well as his and Curtis Hanson's ear for great dialog that balances tongue-in-cheek and sincerity brilliantly, make it a really a good time with the sensationalism of taboos and liberal idealism, where a world of black and white is all that's for a dog, but what about humans?
The story is, like in other Fuller films, sort of ripped off the headlines, with a basic set of characters, albeit here based on a true Hollywood case. A naive would-be actress, Julie (Kristy McNichol) accidentally hits a dog on the road. When she takes it to the vet, they're almost ready to put it down, but she takes him in until the real owner comes forward to the lost & found signs. The dog's friendly, and even a good bet at first as it attacks a burglar/rapist that enters in Julie's home (while the dog is, of course, distracted by a war movie on TV). But soon a startling pattern seems to occur with the dog- it wanders off and attacks a man driving a truck (who then proceeds to drive it, headlong and totally, into a department store), and also Julie's co-star in her bit part in a movie...and both are black people. She doesn't want the dog put down, however, because she thinks attacking people can be cured. So she takes him to gruff and tough Paul Winfield's Keys, who doesn't want to experiment on the dogs he has to end up killing, and takes on this dog as his possible chance to show he can make a dog trained to attack based on black skin un-trained.
This then ensues, in its short running time, many juicy, memorable, and just shamelessly funny moments. And Fuller had to have known some of this had to be comedic material as opposed to the straight down the line thrillers of his heyday. Not that there aren't ones that are downright manipulative in thrills, like when the dog, roaming around randomly in the garbage on one side, doesn't seem to see a black kid walk out of the building on the other side, and just before the dog turns the corner the mother gets her child back inside (it's almost Hitchcockian). Or the cheap symbolism of the dog attacking the guy in the church, and then the shot of the dog in the religious iconography. Or just the 'training' sessions themselves, which involve white castle burgers and many extra pads. Fuller even casts in funny ways, like the guy who runs the training-zoo with Keys, who claims to fame his hand as being crucial to the movie True Grit. Or just simple, stupendous lines involving bagels and nothingness. And what is one meant to take seriously when Julie sees her dog come home *covered in blood* and doesn't think too much of it?
Apparently, being in the theater, I wasn't the only one who got some big kicks out of this stuff too. It's humor that comes out of the earnestness of the material, but that doesn't make it a wrong thing to do. And in all actuality I like it better in this manner, where it is clear where the filmmakers lie in their message- that racial hatred, in a matter of speaking here at least though in general, is not an absolute. In fact, I respond more to a film like White Dog with its sense of daring with making such chancy material into an escapade of horror, especially because in the hands of a master like Fuller it's never an unprofessional feat either, as opposed to an overbearing and redundant film like Crash. By the end, one doesn't feel that it's been a trashy attempt at making a crazy and well-meaning film, and its one of the rarities of exploitation not being whacked out (well, there is SOME trashy stuff here, but all in good fun in the gritty, no-punches-pulled Fuller vein). There are even some specific images and shots that are quite memorable in the cannon of the director (the lights of the background in the film scene within the film, the second to last shot of the film with the aerial view of the dog), and, contrary to some other reviews on the film, an excellent, melodramatic Ennio Morricone score. An underground, underrated early (very) 80s classic. A-
The story is, like in other Fuller films, sort of ripped off the headlines, with a basic set of characters, albeit here based on a true Hollywood case. A naive would-be actress, Julie (Kristy McNichol) accidentally hits a dog on the road. When she takes it to the vet, they're almost ready to put it down, but she takes him in until the real owner comes forward to the lost & found signs. The dog's friendly, and even a good bet at first as it attacks a burglar/rapist that enters in Julie's home (while the dog is, of course, distracted by a war movie on TV). But soon a startling pattern seems to occur with the dog- it wanders off and attacks a man driving a truck (who then proceeds to drive it, headlong and totally, into a department store), and also Julie's co-star in her bit part in a movie...and both are black people. She doesn't want the dog put down, however, because she thinks attacking people can be cured. So she takes him to gruff and tough Paul Winfield's Keys, who doesn't want to experiment on the dogs he has to end up killing, and takes on this dog as his possible chance to show he can make a dog trained to attack based on black skin un-trained.
This then ensues, in its short running time, many juicy, memorable, and just shamelessly funny moments. And Fuller had to have known some of this had to be comedic material as opposed to the straight down the line thrillers of his heyday. Not that there aren't ones that are downright manipulative in thrills, like when the dog, roaming around randomly in the garbage on one side, doesn't seem to see a black kid walk out of the building on the other side, and just before the dog turns the corner the mother gets her child back inside (it's almost Hitchcockian). Or the cheap symbolism of the dog attacking the guy in the church, and then the shot of the dog in the religious iconography. Or just the 'training' sessions themselves, which involve white castle burgers and many extra pads. Fuller even casts in funny ways, like the guy who runs the training-zoo with Keys, who claims to fame his hand as being crucial to the movie True Grit. Or just simple, stupendous lines involving bagels and nothingness. And what is one meant to take seriously when Julie sees her dog come home *covered in blood* and doesn't think too much of it?
Apparently, being in the theater, I wasn't the only one who got some big kicks out of this stuff too. It's humor that comes out of the earnestness of the material, but that doesn't make it a wrong thing to do. And in all actuality I like it better in this manner, where it is clear where the filmmakers lie in their message- that racial hatred, in a matter of speaking here at least though in general, is not an absolute. In fact, I respond more to a film like White Dog with its sense of daring with making such chancy material into an escapade of horror, especially because in the hands of a master like Fuller it's never an unprofessional feat either, as opposed to an overbearing and redundant film like Crash. By the end, one doesn't feel that it's been a trashy attempt at making a crazy and well-meaning film, and its one of the rarities of exploitation not being whacked out (well, there is SOME trashy stuff here, but all in good fun in the gritty, no-punches-pulled Fuller vein). There are even some specific images and shots that are quite memorable in the cannon of the director (the lights of the background in the film scene within the film, the second to last shot of the film with the aerial view of the dog), and, contrary to some other reviews on the film, an excellent, melodramatic Ennio Morricone score. An underground, underrated early (very) 80s classic. A-