Police Dog Story

The first problem with this movie is the lousy script. One of the first rules of screen writing is that you never tell about a situation when you can show it and this movie is full of people telling you what is going on, from Merry Anders' voice-over that sets up each portion of the script to the police officer explaining to James Brown why he has been volunteered to the training officer explaining each command -- well, the last is appropriate. It starts out like 'Dragnet' with its voice-over which derived from its days as a radio show, but this movie rarely exceeds that visually, remaining radio with pictures throughout.

The second is the poor direction. Edward Cahn started out directing "Crime Does Not Pay" shorts for MGM and never got out of Bs, and his handling of actors underlines why: almost every line reading is mechanical, even from the few actors who had a career worth mentioning.

Director of Photography Maury Gertsman doesn't get to do much of interest as almost every group set-up consists of compositions of every one alternated with reaction shots -- all too often a reaction close-up of the dog playing "Wolf". He does get to do some interesting lighting during the dog's patrol sequences, but even that is muted by a flat cutting speed. In fact,the lighting and camera angles in those scenes are the only thing of interest in this entire mess, and not worth waiting around for.

... and I'm referring to films that are dogs as well as animals. The wooden acting and delivery of sparse dialogue is a tad above what Ed Wood might have produced had he been tasked with writing an episode of Dragnet. That show is definitely what seems to be the model for this very short hour-long feature. There are no big names in this one, and the entire thing is delivered in voice-over by the journalist Terry Dayton (Merry Anders).

The jist of the story is that Wolf - a German Shepherd dog - is a stray that has evaded capture for a year. He hasn't hurt anybody, he's just been a general nuisance as far as scavenging for food. When he finally is caught via a tranquilizer gun, for some reason journalist Terry Dayton thinks that Wolf would be a great candidate as a canine cop, and she plugs the idea strongly in her paper. Meanwhile, young policeman Norm Edwards is volunteered for the job of being one of the officers to gets a canine partner, partially due to his experience with working with dogs in Korea, and also due to encouragement of his current partner. Norm, being the star here, winds up with Wolf, who initially doesn't want this assignment any more than Norm does.

At first this seems like it's going to be a cute little "man and dog become best friends and fight crime" picture, but there is one stunt that Norm pulls that - as a dog lover - had me feeling like he's a bit of a rat in regards to Wolf. Regardless of his reasons for what he does, I certainly didn't feel that he deserved the steadfast love and loyalty of such a noble animal.

On the good side, the canine star of the show - Wolf - is a beautiful dog that gets a chance to show off in some great canine action sequences. This one moves fast enough - almost like an old 40's two-reeler - that you won't get bored with it. If you love animal-in-action pictures and the old B- efforts that were still made abundantly up through the 1970's this one is worth your time.

Favorite goof - Reporter Terry Dayton has a bulletin board stuffed with sketches of unknown origin and supposedly of the dog Wolf. However, there are two sketches that are identical but are obviously of a different breed of dog altogether - it appears to be a sketch of a Pekinese, which is not exactly a breed of dog known for striking fear into the hearts of criminals.