Retro Reel: The Incredible Journey


Posted on Apr 24, 2008
By Julia Szabo

Walt Disney Video (VHS), 1963, 80 minutes

Available on Amazon.com

This movie is in the FetchDog Top 20 

In recent years, movies about dogs have supplied the featured canines with celebrity voices. But in the "good old days," animals' thoughts, feelings, and intentions were conveyed without the voiceover device. In real life animals don't talk (yet), so it makes sense not to endow them with human powers on screen. This movie adaptation of Sheila Burnford's 1961 book is a fine example of old-school dog-movie artistry. It proves that Hollywood doesn't need to anthropomorphize dogs on film - that, in fact, it might be more respectful not to.  

What happens in the movie is based on a true story: three animals - a young Labrador named Luath, a Siamese Cat named Tao, and a senior Bull Terrier named Bodger - misunderstand their family's intentions when they are left behind with a friend during a vacation. So they set out together to find their family, crossing 200 miles of Canadian wilderness. This is much more than cute kid stuff: We feel keenly the animals' stress and the urgency of their mission - and smile at their unique bond (the cat the Bull Terrier are best friends based on, of all things, their mutual dislike of other cats). It's not spoiling anything to say that the three ultimately achieve their goal and meet a happy end - in this incredible journey, it really is the journey, not the destination, that matters.  

This elegant telling of Burnford's story was remade 30 years later as Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey. During those three decades, animal actors were eclipsed by their human counterparts even as they were "humanized" with celebrity voices. In the 1993 version, the animal characters are voiced by Michael J. Fox, Don Ameche, and Sally Field; but on the movie poster; the animals aren't credited (even in the movie's end credits, only the animal trainers get a callout). Amazingly, the poster for the 1961 original gave top billing to the three animals, in this order: Bodger the Bull Terrier, Tao the Siamese Cat, and Luath the Labrador Retriever. Today it is rare for an animal actor to get props on a poster or onscreen, but back in 1941 High Sierra gave impressive star billing to Zero, the charismatic mutt who plays Humphrey Bogart's dog Pard.

Meanwhile, two other titles recently reviewed on this blog give reason to hope that contemporary filmmakers might see fit to give this movie's old-school style of dog storytelling a try: Benji and The Adventures of Milo and Otis, both of which opt not to supply their pet protagonists with human voices. 

 

Presence of dogs: reelreelreelreel
Respect for dogs: reelreelreelreel
Canine star quality: reelreelreelreel
Family friendly: reelreelreelreel


 

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