Dogless Dog Movies


By Julia Szabo

Comments(1)

This past week, counting down to the Academy Awards this coming Sunday, FetchDog's Cinematic Dog blog has been celebrating movies with dogs in them, whether the four-footed performers have starring, supporting, or walk-on - even swim-on - roles.

But there's one division of this fetching movie sub-genre that's not often discussed: movies in which a dog plays a key role, yet no actual dog appears on screen.

The first such flick is Nightmare Alley (1947), starring Tyrone Power as Stanton Carlisle, a con man who poses as a mind-reader. (The film wasn't nominated for any Oscars, but it's great nonetheless.)

The power of the dog comes into play when Carlisle learns the trick that never fails to turn people into suckers - it's so powerful, it even sucks in the con. For the last word on the role of the dog in this fascinating film noir, check out the brilliant analysis by the peerless Self-Styled Siren, whose blog is a must for anyone calling themselves a cinephile.

Then there's Come Back, Little Sheba (1952). This classic of stage and screen is playwright William Inge's story of a woman forced by circumstances to confront her unhappy marriage. It begins and ends with longing for a little lost dog: Sheba, the mutt of the title.

Shirley Booth won the Best Actress Oscar for playing Sheba's bereft owner to heartbreaking perfection. Playing her recovering-alcoholic husband, Burt Lancaster comes across convincingly as much older than he was at the time (to win this part, Lancaster conquered stiff competition: the more age-appropriate Humphrey Bogart).

Finally, consider Oscar winner (for Sound Effects Editing) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), in which we discover that Harrison Ford's title character - soon to appear later this year in yet another Indiana Jones installment, - was named after a dog. We pricked up our ears to learn that, in the upcoming movie, actor Shia LaBoeuf plays a character named Mutt Williams.

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Comments
Clever post. While I love dogs, I dislike most dog movies because dogs don't behave in ways that Hollywood thinks and people buy dogs believing the movie. But no one would buy a dog because Little Sheba ran away. :-)
Posted By jan
on Feb 23, 2008
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