Il coraggio di Lassie

When you've got a young Elizabeth Taylor and such scene stealing character actors as Frank Morgan and Harry Davenport it's almost an obligation to watch Courage Of Lassie. All of them have their moments not to forget America's favorite collie.

In fact the collie isn't Lassie. When Taylor finds him having gone astray in the woods she names the pup Bill. She trains Bill as a sheepdog and it works out well until he becomes separated from her and drafted into the canine corps of the US Army.

Service in the Aleutians leaves a shellshocked collie and of course eventually he's reunited with Taylor who does her best to rehabilitate him.

Morgan plays a kindly neighbor to widow Selena Royle who is Liz's mother and Davenport is the judge who will decide the fate of the collie. Guess how it goes.

Nice scenic color location cinematography also characterizes Courage Of Lassie, but it doesn't overshadow the human performers who are at their scene stealing best.

If you enjoy watching "A-Dog-As-A-Shining-Hero" movie, then you're sure to get a satisfying charge out of Courage Of Lassie (COL, for short) from 1946.

Featuring plenty of carefully staged wildlife photography (especially within its first 20 minutes), COL had our favourite celebrity canine, Lassie, heading out on one daring, brave and big-hearted adventure after another.

As something of a bonus - COL starred a fresh-faced, 14-year-old Elizabeth Taylor, who played young Kathie Merrick, the easily-excitable daughter of simple sheep ranchers etching out a modest living in the American North-West.

All-in-all - COL was, for the most part, an enjoyable enough feature film, but I seriously think that its story was probably best suited for a much younger audience than myself.

*Note* - What didn't make a whole lot of sense to me was that, even though this film's title clearly named this prized collie-dog as Lassie, Kathie kept repeatedly calling this pedigree pooch, Bill, for whatever reason.

This film starts off with a collie named Bill who breaks away from his family and encounters all kinds of friends in the woods which are bears, ravens, hawks and even travels on a pile of wood through all kinds of rapids that almost drown him. Bill no sooner takes a chance and relaxes in the grass when he is shot by hunters and Katie Merrick, (Elizabeth Taylor) comes to his rescue who had been following Bill because he ran off with her pants as she was swimming in the a lake. Kattie manages to tell the hunters not to kill Bill, because she is going to bring him to get help from a good friend of hers, Harry MacBain, (Frank Morgan) who manages to bring Bill back to health. There are many problems that face Katie with her collie dog and Bill is even recruited in the Army. Very nice film from the past. Enjoy.

Well, folks, there were no surprises in this one. A young girl adopts a lost puppy and takes it in for her own, turning it into a first class sheep dog. Then the inseparable pair are separated and the dog must face a cruel world without his master. The film has the usual [and some unusual] assortment of adventures from the collie being shot, run over, drafted, shot again, ran to exhaustion, put on trial, exonerated, and then a tearful re-union with the little girl [the dog didn't shed a tear]. Some little girl. Wow! I liked it, but then, I am a hopeless dog lover: it was pretty corny, though. Nice Canadian scenery throughout, should be a winner with the kids.

'Courage of Lassie' is not really about 'Lassie' but about a Lassie-like collie named Bill. 'Courage of Lassie' is one of the best Lassie films, in my opinion. The storyline is packed full of adventure in which Bill saves the day, but when Bill is hit by a truck and taken away from young Kathy (Elizabeth Taylor), Bill becomes an army dog in the second World War. (I think this is the only Lassie film to have a female girl as the dog's primary master.) There are also some happy parts of the movie, showing the deep friendship that the young girl and collie share. This, intertwined with Lassie saving sheep in a snow storm and becoming a war hero makes this a good film. It's not as good as 'Lassie Come Home', but it is still worth a watch if you enjoy films about dogs.