Won Ton Ton, o Cachorro que Salvou Hollywood

What can you say about a film that feels like a graduation exercise by the B-grade film students out of UCLA? "A, for effort." Now, not to get too side tracked here, but if SF State Students had done this film, it would have been all artsy and existential, but I digress.

"Won Ton Ton" is a nod to old Hollywood, and sends up the old classic system before the Golden Age of Hollywood. This was the period when visual gags and formulations that we see in today's films were forged and put on the screen for the first time for all to see. Pretty starlets in chorus lines, stage hands pretending to be big shots to take advantage of pretty young ladies, double dealing and creative bookeeping tinsel-town style, movie moguls and classic vaudeville actors are all showcased here.

One is hard pressed to malign the film, but let's face it, it's got charm but also some issues. The thing that somewhat torpedoes this film is the post production. The sound is raw. It's all scratch track (or mostly), and it gives the film a kind of amateurish family film feel, which makes it hard to accept the visual cues and other gags the movie trying to convey. There's some looped sounds, but one wonders why the post isn't a bit more refined.

For all that it's actually quite an endearing film. Certainly not the best, but definitely a charmer. A lot of classic faces from the 50s and 60s make cameos, and the lines they deliver are good, but the film is somewhat misdirected, and Bruce Dern (as good an actor as he is) seems somewhat odd for the role.

The film, as much work was put into this thing, seems a little on the low budget side. Still, after having viewing it after 30+ years later, I can still warm up to it some. It's really a film for industry insiders with as flare for their own history..

Then, there's the dog (or series of dogs used for the lead). This film and a few other shows popularized the German Shepard, and we see here the showcasing and capitalization of the Bavarian hound. Well, they say never work with children or animals, but Won Ton Ton holds its own in a low budget off-beat homage sort of way.

If you're a real Hollywood aficionado, then this film might satisfy. Otherwise maybe see it once, and then pass it off to a friend. :-)

I saw this movie years ago, and really liked it. It got bad reviews and disappeared from view. I have not seen it on TV or video stores. Kahn was great and so were the many cameos. Give it a try if you can find it.

This is a nice slapstick-comedy about the good old days in Hollywood and also a hommage to Rin Tin Tin, the most famous silent-movie dog-star. Bruce Dern plays a director who starts to have success after discovering the dog. All-star guest appearances from Milton Berle over Cyd Charisse to Rory Calhoun and Johnny Weissmueller are also included but the best actor is the dog who plays Won Ton Ton. He is fantastic. In some scenes it doesn't work to put the humor and slapstick from the Twenties into the Seventies but this movie is really worth to take a look.

EVERY movie nut has a few in his collection that he hides from his friends... films that "aren't cool", trashy films with no redeeming social value, outrageous films with no importance whatever. Films that you secretly watch from time to time just because they're FUN!

I'll come clean here... ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, POOTIE TANG, SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT, CANDY and ROCK & ROLL HIGH SCHOOL are among MY Guilty Pleasures.

An outstanding member of my back-of-the-shelf collection is WON TON TON, THE DOG WHO SAVED Hollywood.

This one is DEFINITELY for those folks whose knowledge of American cinema goes back a LONG way... back to the Mack Sennett comedies, and to the days before Hollywood became a multibillion dollar Money Machine. It's a sort of Love Letter to the silent screen stars of the 1920's; they appear in a copious number of cameos here. If you don't know who the Ritz Brothers were, you won't get this film!

Madelein Kahn literally steals the show from a somewhat dopey German Shepard, a MAJOR achievement for ANY actor or actress! There's an old stage saying that one should NEVER work with kids or animals; they'll steal your scenes every time without even trying. Kahn MORE than held her own, even successfully stealing scenes from the pooch. Check out the scene where the roast chicken falls off of the delivery truck, and Kahn and Won Ton Ton fight over possession of it. She just DUSTED the dog, and overall HE comes off as the comedic straight man!

The only other recent actor that comes close to this level of thespian gallantry and sheer talent is Jim Bellushi in his performance in K9... he's ANOTHER screwball comedian who can pull it off successfully.

Bruce Dern's performance is somewhat wooden. Dern's persona literally radiates instability and danger... NOT good for comedy. He's gamely going through the motions here; it quickly becomes painfully apparent that Dern, as fine an actor as he is, has NO potential in comedic roles.

Art Carney does his usual masterful job of playing a curmudgeonly movie producer, constantly shooting down Dern's half baked movie ideas ("There's this little girl in Kansas, see, and a tornado takes her and her house to this magic land, somewhere over the rainbow...").

One of the unsung heros here is Ron Liebman; he shows a flair for subtle comedy that's totally unexpected.

It's not a film for everyone; a LOT of folks will HATE it. But.. if you love the REALLY old movies, and you can FIND it, WON TON TON is good for an evening's entertainment.

I thought it was a kick - but then I've been watching movies that date from 1917 and know a little about the pictures. This romp combined cameos and bits by folks from Hollywood's good years (which I define as when they used people instead of digital simulation) as well as familiar faces from TV and pictures from the 50's and 60's.

It's a GO for my money (but then I wasn't in high school when I bought it). Don't see it unless you love pictures!