Rusty's Birthday

Don't get me wrong. I like family movies, and love kids movies, especially the ones with dogs. Today, kids movies tend to be full of foolish gags (Cruella DeVil falls in a giant muffin maker, etc.) But yesteryear's kid's movies seem to consist of almost sickeningly sweet people. They're not perfect, but in the end, they do the right thing (to the dot), and EVERYTHING works out, everyone is best friends, and everyone is better for this adventure. I think the movie makers were working very hard to teach every little boy and girl good morals and manners. Not that this is bad but I think they could do it a little less obviously, and make the people a little bit more. . . human.

Yes, it gets a little sickeningly sweet. Danny Mitchell's (the main character) family is perfect in every respect. Watching them interact makes it so obvious that this is only a movie. Who would really talk like that?!? His parents always know what's best to do and are always perfect. They help those less fortunate themselves, and give Danny good advice (being careful to discreetly say "I told you so" afterward he doesn't follow it).

It's not realistic. But nonetheless, I do appreciate the values that it has, despite the fact that the people are a little too perfect. There are too many movies nowadays with broken homes and disturbed families. It's a nice picture of small town life, even if it's not quite accurate.

Flame the Wonder Dog plays Rusty. He is a very good actor and has several fun tricks in his repertoire. Rusty, too, is perhaps a little too perfect as a dog, but not too much. I think perhaps it's a fairly accurate portrayal of a boy's dog who was constantly by his master's side, and was able to learn a lot through several years of his master's training. Besides, very few dog movies DON'T have a dog that is at least a little extraordinary.

Not the best of the "Rusty" series, but it is not bad as a kid's movie. Good values, clean fun.

RUSTY'S BIRTHDAY (Columbia, 1949), directed by Seymour Friedman, the eighth and final installment in the series, finds German shepherd dog Rusty (Flame) acquiring more screen time than in previous efforts. In this chapter, he finds himself in an unexpected adventure that sends him far from home and nearly acquiring new owners in the process.

The story opens with Hugh Mitchell (John Litel) and his teenage son, Danny (Ted Donaldson) preparing the homecoming of wife and mother, Ethel (Ann Doran) from her trip. Upon her arrival, she shows Danny Rusty's new collar she bought for his upcoming birthday, a gift Danny intends on giving to him on the occasion, and not before. While opening the other gifts, Rusty notices a vagrant (Robert Williams) sneaking out of the Mitchell's tool shed and chases after him over to Jack's Service Station where a middle-aged couple have stopped their trailer for gas. Noticing the handbag dropped on the street and the trailer driving down the road, Rusty takes hold of the lady's purse before the vagrant gets his hands on it, chasing after the trailer while the vagrant chases after the dog. Catching up to Mr. and Mrs. Wembley (Raymond Largay and Lelah Tyler), Rusty returns the handbag. For such a good deed, and believing the vagrant to be its owner, the vagrant earns his "reward" by selling "his dog" to the elderly couple. With Rusty, know called "Jackpot," traveling with his new owners, he eventually breaks away at the next stop hundreds of miles from both Lawtonville and Danny. During his long and tedious venture, Rusty injures his paw and while going down a hill to get a drink of water from a pond below, he gets himself trapped in a net overnight. The next morning, Rusty is released by Jeff (Jimmy Hunt) a little boy traveling across the country with his older brother, Bill (Mark Dennis) and their widowed father, Virgil Neeley (Ray Tea)l, an unemployed migrant worker looking for work. Against his better nature, Mr. Neeley agrees to let Jeff adopt the dog, even though he can't afford to feed himself and his sons. Upon their arrival in Lawtonville, Danny finds Rusty with the Neeleys and accuses them of stealing his dog. Further complications arise when Neeley is arrested for having an expired driver's license and placed under suspicion for taking Danny's dog. With both father and older son in the police station for questioning, the Mitchells take Jeff under their care until matters are cleared, causing Danny to become jealous of the youngster whom Rusty has developed a deep affection.

With so many situations occurring in this tight 60 minute programmer, the moral theme to the story is "never jump to conclusions," which is what Danny does on numerous occasions. Aside from accusations made towards the Neeley's for being dog thieves, and accusing the elder teenage son of breaking into his house, Danny's other problem is overcoming his jealousy towards the younger son who takes up much attention with both his parents and Rusty. Danny, about to be a junior in high school, is at an awkward age where he believes his parents no longer care for him, later deciding he would be better off leaving home and attending the Rowan-Lee Military Academy. With his heart-to-heart talk with his father, Danny comes to realize he's at fault for neglecting to have Rusty with a collar and name tag as required by law, and for that Rusty could rightfully belong to the Neeley's. As Danny is maturing to adulthood, so was its star, Ted Donaldson, in one of his final screen roles of his career. One wonders if Donaldson might have succeeded in adult roles.  Although the scripts to this series are not very consistent from one film to the next, repetition sets in as Rusty goes through the motions of obedience with Danny going over what he has learned through the training process by giving him commands to lie down, walk backward, bark, among other things as demonstrated verbatim in THE SON OF RUSTY (1947).

Aside from Rusty, little Jimmy Hunt gets most of the attention as a little boy with an wild imagination and an imaginary dog called Gladly, the name he gives Rusty. One heart-felt scene finds him being sung to sleep by Carrie Simmons (Lillian Bronson), a matronly lady who takes an interest in the Neeley family, to the Stephen Foster song, "Beautiful Dreamer." Unashamedly sentimental, RUSTY'S BIRTHDAY gets off to a good start with its dog separated from owner and his journey back home theme, a reminiscent to MGM's own LASSIE COME HOME (1943). While the story strays away from its original premise, followers of the series will find this production satisfactory while those unfamiliar with the method of old-fashioned family movies of long ago may find the dialog trite and situations not true to life. How RUSTY'S BIRTHDAY is accepted as entertainment depends on the individual viewer.

And so ends the life and times of Rusty and the Mitchell family of the town of Lawtonville. Thanks to Turner Classic Movies cable channel for its June 30, 2007, presentation, along with other "Rusty" movies that have been unavailable for viewing in many years. And to Rusty, "Happy Birthday." (** collars)

Rusty's Birthday (1949)

** (out of 4)

The eighth and final film in Columbia's Rusty series features the dog playing a much bigger part than in previous films. This time out Danny (Ted Donaldson) buys his dog a collar for his birthday but he doesn't want to put it on him until the special day. When Rusty goes chasing a bad guy he ends up with a friendly couple who thinks he's a stray and takes him with them and soon Rusty must find his way back home. His adventure back leads to a poor family who are struggling to make a living but soon the dog brings the family closer to Danny and his parents (John Litel, Ann Doran). RUSTY'S BIRTHDAY runs just 60-minutes but there's quite a bit of story in such a little film. Or, I should say, there's a lot of small stuff going on in this film that never really adds up in the end and this final episode, while decent, really doesn't accomplish much. I think fans of the series should at least get a little entertainment out of this thing but there's still no doubt that it's one of the weakest. The biggest problem is that the story never really can focus on anything because it's constantly jumping back and forth between Danny's story and the story of the poor family. It doesn't help that Danny is once again being a jerk and after a while his attitude does begin to anger the viewer. As with previous entries, the performances by the three leads are all good and we even get a strong performance by Ray Teal as the poor father trying to give his sons a better life. RUSTY'S BIRTHDAY might not be a complete winner but at just 60-minutes it's worth watching for fans.

Lawtonville, Illinois high school junior Ted Donaldson (as Daniel "Danny" Mitchell) and his city attorney father John Litel (as Hugh) are unable to figure out how to cook food. Luckily, wife and mother Ann Doran (as Ethel) returns from a trip to Chicago. She brings her son a new collar for his dog "Rusty" but Donaldson wants to save it for a birthday present. Later, Rusty is mistaken for a stray and abducted after helping a lady with a purse snatcher. Rusty is 140 miles from home, cuts his paw looking for canned food and ends up caught in some wire mesh. He is rescued and adopted by little Jimmy Hunt (as Jefferson "Jeff" Neeley)...

The pre-teen Hunt returns to his poor father Ray Teal (as Virgil) and teenage brother Mark Dennis (as Bill), then decides to name his new dog "Gladly" after the stuffed animal he inexplicably drags around in the dirt; shabby treatment for a beloved pet who cleans up well, although we can assume the scene was accomplished in few takes...

Rusty's new family decides to settle in Lawtonville, leading to jealous clashes. This eighth and last "Rusty" film seems to be setting up all kinds of new situation possibilities for the series, probably thinking Donaldson was getting too old. However, the story nicely redirects attention to Donaldson and guest teen Dennis. They have a good fight, but make up and become friends. Also watch lonely Lillian Bronson (as Carrie Simmons) slowly maneuver herself into the needy new family. She's sweet. So is the ending of "Rusty's Birthday". When television became dominant, the "Lassie" TV series carried on for the boy and his dog tales.

****** Rusty's Birthday (11/3/49) Seymour Friedman ~ Ted Donaldson, Jimmy Hunt, Mark Dennis, John Litel

This final entry in the Rusty series seems to know what the first Rusty film did not - that it is part of a series, and as such it tries to tie up any loose ends appropriately.

First off, this entry gives you a big dose of Rusty as he is sold by a burglar to an unknowing couple passing through town and only manages to get away and head back home after he is a couple of hundred miles from Lawtonville. On the way back he meets up with the Neeley family, two sons and their widower father who is trying to eke out a living doing day labor traveling from town to town. As chance would have it the Neeley family is headed back to Lawtonville, now with Rusty in tow, thinking he is a stray since he has no collar. In the meantime, Danny and his friends are out literally beating the bushes looking for Rusty who is missing, in part, because Danny did not follow the law and his dad's advice and keep Rusty's collar on him along with his registration. When Danny and his friends find Rusty with the Neeleys Danny immediately yells "theif!" not believing their claims that Rusty had been found so far away. Getting the attention of a nearby policeman with his ruckus, Danny causes temporary legal problems for the Neeleys who, due to their unstable financial status and state to state existence, don't have their automobile tags and registration in order.

Things turn around quickly for the Neeleys though as Hugh Mitchell offers Mr. Neeley a chance to sharecrop some land he has. When Danny sees the youngest Neeley being babied by his mother and Rusty seemingly taking up with the boy, at first he decides to go to military school and give Rusty to the youngest Neeley. However he soon learns you can't give away what you think you've already lost and call it generosity - the affection of his mom and of Rusty.

This last entry in the series really comes full circle with the Neeley family being in the same place emotionally that Danny and Hugh Mitchell were in the first film, although they are certainly living a much more financially modest life than the Mitchells were. The youngest boy needs a mother, a home, and a dog to call his own. The oldest son at first resents the woman who takes an interest in his father. Most of all the film makes the point that although Danny is grown, he'll never outgrow some things - like Rusty and the love and interest of his parents.

The last scene is rather strange as the Neeleys and the Mitchells celebrate Rusty's birthday since, if you remember the first film, there would be no way to know that date since Rusty was originally a German war dog. But then heart, not consistency, has been the trademark of this series anyways.

I don't think Sony/Columbia will ever release all of the Rusty films together in a set because there is just too much inconsistency between entries as I have already mentioned. In the first film, Mrs. Mitchell is Danny's stepmom and Lawtonville must be on the coast because German spies land via sub near the town. By the last entry Lawtonville is clearly mentioned as being in Illinois - making a submarine landing impossible - and Danny's stepmom has been transformed into his actual mother.

If you like the other Rusty films I'm sure you'll like this one too.