Lassie Come Home

I sat down tonight to watch this movie, thinking it would be good, warm-hearted fare at the end of a hard day at work. I couldn't watch it. Just. Could. NOT.

I spent the first 15 minutes of the movie crying. I started out teary-eyed for the few brief minutes where Lassie and her boy (played by a roughly 12-yr-old Roddy MacDowell) were together, knowing from the basic plot of the movie (father sells dog to man who lives hundreds of miles away) that the boy and the dog would soon be separated. From there I moved on to full-blown tears when Roddy comes home from school and asks his parents where Lassie is. Anyone who's ever had a dog or ever loved a dog will not be able to take this scene.

We then see where Lassie is living now ... in a kennel, on a rich man's estate who has tons of dogs. Lassie is laying in her kennel all listless because she misses her family. (More tears!) A mean caretaker of the animals tells Lassie, "I'll make you eat even if I have to shove your food down your throat." That did it for me! That was 15 minutes into the movie, I was crying my eyes out, and I said to myself there's no way I can sit through another 75 minutes of this torment of seeing Lassie and her boy separated, of seeing all the terrible ordeals that Lassie must go through before she is reunited with her boy.

I fast-forwarded to the end, thinking the ending would make me happy, and would make up for the 15 minutes of sobbing. Well ... it did and it didn't. I saw the last 2 or so minutes of the film, beginning with a much skinnier Lassie limping on 3 legs to meet Roddy at his school. (How did she get so skinny? What happened to her front paw that made her not be able to walk on it? I don't want to know!) The scene is so touching, so heart-breaking, I don't think anyone could watch it without bursting out sobbing like a baby. Young Roddy did a terrific acting job when he showed his glee and love at seeing his precious Lassie again.

I've read the other comments here, and understand that Lassie went through many trials while traveling back home from Scotland to Yorkshire. I'm glad I fast-forwarded the movie; I don't think I could've taken those scenes! If you ever need a good cry, just watch this movie. I can't recall any other movie I've ever seen that has stirred such emotionality in me, and certainly none that has ever made me cry so hard, both from sadness and happiness and a dozen other emotions.

This review is based on seeing 17 of the 90 minutes of this film. I think if I saw all 90 minutes, I'd be drowning in a pool made from my own tears right now. I don't have enough Kleenex in the house to watch this whole danged movie!

Lassie makes a remarkable screen debut. Under the guidance of trainer Rudd Weatherwax, the dog will become one of the most popular and enduring animal "stars" ever. It's easy to see why, in "Lassie Come Home". The collie, and its descendants, performed this basic role for some decades to come.

When the story begins, Lassie must be sold, by the poor Carracloughs: father Donald Crisp, mother Elsa Lancaster, and their boy Roddy McDowall. Mr. Crisp loses his job, and can't afford to keep the pet. Though Lassie is sold, his real emotional "owner" is the boy Joe, played by Mr. McDowall. McDowall's performance is terrific, and the others are no less than competent. The MGM color cinematography is gorgeous, and the story understandably sentimental. Interestingly, Elizabeth Taylor appears in her second film role; she will become Lassie's owner for the third series film, "Courage of Lassie" (1946).

If "Lassie, Come Home" doesn't raise some emotion, you may not be human.

********* Lassie Come Home (1943) Fred M. Wilcox ~ Roddy McDowall, Donald Crisp, Elizabeth Taylor, May Witty

A magnificent British collie struggles to cover the hundreds of miles that separate her from the family she loves.

LASSIE COME HOME is one of the truly great family films. Crafted with care by MGM and based on the classic novel by Eric Knight, it will strike a warm response in the heart of anyone who has ever loved a dog.

The production values are first rate and the color photography is spectacular. While the scenery & filming locations are strictly Western North America, they nevertheless make evocative stand-ins for the settings in the book. It might be worth the viewer's time to check the relationship of the Yorkshire Moors with the Scottish Highlands on a map, so as to better appreciate the phenomenal journey which the dog undertakes.

The casting is excellent throughout: Donald Crisp, Elsa Lanchester & Roddy McDowall as the poor, proud family which must sell their only treasure, Lassie; Nigel Bruce as the gruffly tenderhearted Duke which buys the dog; a young Dame Elizabeth Taylor plays his lively granddaughter. J. Pat O'Malley portrays the brutal dog handler employed by the Duke.

Along her journey Lassie encounters old folks who need her companionship (Dame May Whitty & real-life husband Ben Webster, in his last film role), a traveling tinker who values her protection (Edmund Gwenn), and suspicious sheepmen on the watch for killer dogs (Alan Napier & Arthur Shields).

Lassie is played by Pal, a male dog trained by the celebrated Rudd Weatherwax (1907-1985), who was responsible for generations of Lassies which appeared in movies & television. Pal gives a remarkable performance, providing the very heart & soul of the film.

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Eric Mowbray Knight was born in Yorkshire, England, on April 10, 1897. Moving to America in 1912, he became a student in New York, but left to join the Canadian Armed Forces with the outbreak of World War One. In 1932 he published a collection of his wartime letters - Portrait Of A Flying Yorkshireman. Later came two novels which made good use of authentic Yorkshire dialect: Invitation To Life (1934) and Song On Your Bugles (1937). He didn't think much of his 1940 children's book, Lassie Come-Home and was very surprised at its great success. His next novel, This Above All (1941), a World War Two romance, was also popular. Knight joined the United States Army and rose to the rank of Major. Working with an Army film unit under the direction of Frank Capra, Eric Knight was tragically killed in a plane crash off the coast of Suriname on January 15, 1943. MGM dedicated LASSIE COME HOME, which was released later that year, to his memory.

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The snatch of ballad Edmund Gwenn is singing while shaving in his first scene is "I Dreamt That I Dwelt In Marble Halls" from the 1843 operetta The Bohemian Girl by Michael William Balfe (1808-1870).

"Lassie Chien Fidèle" (=Faithful dog,French translation) was one of the first books I read when I was a child .It's a precious memory.

Although it is not,IMHO, Wilcox's most memorable movie (it would rather be his impressive "forbidden planet"),it's still good value and excellent entertainment for the whole family.The color is wonderful .And the real star is Lassie herself for the other characters have less screen time than this extraordinary dog (male colley Pal) and most of them are brilliantly supporting :I particularly like Dame May Witty as the old lady who takes care of Lassie for a short while.

Roddy Mac Dowall was a wunderkind ,my favorite of all the child actors of all time.He is very cute and he is really moving.When I saw the scene he shares with Elizabeth Taylor-very lovely too- in the kennels ,I couldn't help thinking that ,twenty years later ,they would be Octavian and Cleopatra!!!

Like this?try these...

National Velvet (Brown,1944)

The Yearling (Brown,1946)

How green was my valley (Ford,1941,with a younger McDowall)

I'm sure that when MGM was filming Lassie Come Home they were not aware they would be setting up the foundation of a collie franchise. The film obviously was meant to be a B picture filler as none of MGM's big box office names were used. But the story of the loyal collie dog who traveled over 1000 miles from Scotland to Yorkshire to return to his young master struck a nostalgic chord in the English speaking world.

What MGM did do for this film was use location footage, most likely in California and film it in Technicolor. Doing that made the film a classic and wanted by today's market which disdains black and white.

Two young future stars Roddy McDowall and Elizabeth Taylor are in this as children and they are an appealing pair. For the rest of the cast MGM made liberal use of the English colony in Hollywood with Elsa Lanchester, Donald Crisp, Nigel Bruce, Edmund Gwenn, Alan Napier, Arthur Shields, and Dame May Witty and her husband Ben Webster. In fact if you take away the two child stars, this film may just have the oldest average age of any film cast around.

Elizabeth Taylor and Roddy McDowall formed a lifetime friendship from this film. She also became very attached to Donald Crisp who became a father figure for her until his death in 1974. Crisp and McDowall are reunited as father and son as they were in How Green Was My Valley.

The plot is a simple one. Because he's out of work and needs the money for food on the table, Donald Crisp sells the pure bred collie to Lord Nigel Bruce who takes him from Yorkshire to Scotland. But Lassie ain't having this and escapes and makes the journey to what she considers home. The story is about her adventures on the way.

After over 60 years Lassie is still appealing to children of all ages everywhere.