Ils ne tuent que leurs maîtres

I agree wholeheartedly that this film is a screen writing mess, a rest home for aging once-great or near-great stars, and some of the sleaziest plot twists ever to come out of a pre-1975 MGM movie. Nonetheless, I also must confess being, at times, enamored with the film for brief periods of time. James Garner plays a sheriff in a small town out to find out what happened to a woman's body washed up to shore that had seemingly been attacked by her Doberman. the dog is assumed to be the culprit, but soon new evidence shows Garner that the woman led a secret life full of sex secrets with members of the town of both sexes. Anyway, we get lesbian overtones, three some references, love triangles, and so much more than you might expect in a film that was the last to be shot in MGM's Lot #2 with old friends like Arthur O' Connell, Ann Rutherford, Edmond O'Brien, Peter Lawford, June Allyson, and Tom Ewell showing up either in featured roles of cameos. Hal Holbrook plays a vet and adds some subtle subtext to the story despite the bizarre story he is involved with. Don't try to make too much sense out of what is going on and things will at least be adequate to get you through the film. Garner as always is a pleasure. Katherine Ross plays a lead role and the love interest(hard to believe she will be 70 in January!).

It was better than it should have been. It seems like it was first slated as a movie-of-the-week but then an fading MGM figured to score some box office bucks with the gimmick of this being one of their last movies shot on a studio lot. Casting MGM veterans in small parts helped some but, this being a detective movie, Jim Garner has to carry it all the way. Which he does with his usual aplomb.

It's a movie of its time. It's a small-town murder mystery with a back story which might have come from a Playboy or Penthouse fiction piece; the type no major studio would have looked at just three years earlier (it was made in 1972), let alone in MGM's heyday.

Faults aside, this movie has its interesting plot twists ratcheting up what little tension there is, so I was hooked until the end. But a loose-end or two are never answered - where did the fresh water come from? And if it was from the bath tub, was any fluoridation found? What happened to Peter Lawford's girlfriend? In one scene she's waving hello with her generous bust; in the next - a crucial one involving PL's character - there's patently no trace of her nor does anyone ask. Eh?

Hal Holbrook and Katherine Ross form the remainder of the troika of leads; Holbrook as the county vet and Ross as his long-haired, long-legged assistant from New York. In other words, she's really there to become romantically involved with Garner's character (a cinematic must.)

Harry Guardino's county sheriff brings in his boys when things get tricky but to no any real effect except the last scene. Garner's character never feels the case slipping away from him or the noose tightening as with Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade in 'The Maltese Falcon.'

June Allyson has a cameo, bringing in yet another plot twist. A better screenwriter and/or director would have put her in more of the picture. Her brief presence lights up the screen far more than the rest of the cast combined - maybe she should have played the detective.

James Garner is the police chief of a small town. A woman turns up dead, and it's accepted that her own dog, a doberman, killed her. As he investigates the matter, however, new facts come into focus that exonerate the animal..... and makes his own loneliness apparent to him.

It's a pleasant little romance with Garner in modern dress, looking a little seedy as he and Katherine Ross fall in love with each other. It's a very minor effort, but it's eked out nicely with many small roles taken by familiar faces: Hal Holbrook, Harry Guardino, JUne Allyson, Peter Lawford, Edmond O'Brien, Ann Rutherford..... is this where old MGM stars retire to?

One of the first vehicles of the 1970's catering to the 1970's Doberman craze; although this particular pooch is more a McGuffin than pet: A friendly yet sometimes growling, possibly deadly red-herring that could provide California small town sheriff James Garner some clues...

He plays writer Lane Slate's rural lawman, Abel Marsh, in the first of three movies (Andy Griffith took over the rest); and while this is the only one made for the big screen, with a lightweight, glossy main score it both sounds and plays like a Movie Of The Week...

Even the town itself, the last chance audiences got see the Universal lot, is pure television, as is Garner's affable manner despite throwing around a few glib curse words and references to homosexuality...

The latter concerns the woman who dies in the beginning, seeming killed by the dog, Murphy... And, adding to the sporadic attempts to fit into the progressive, post counter-culture era, the beach-drowned victim is the bisexual wife of classy Peter Lawford, hanging around a young, full-chested and very straight Jenifer Shaw...

But it's natural-beauty's natural-beauty Katharine Ross who provides Garner both an ingenue and a possible twist... One of several moments where THEY ONLY KILL THEIR MASTERS wakes up from its episodic daze and becomes the Old School Detective/Neo Noir Mystery it strives for (but not quite often enough).

The film opens up with a view of the ocean and their is a woman floating in the water and a Doberman is biting her and trying to pull her on shore. Abel Marsh, (James Garner) is the Chief of Police and at first accepts the fact that this dog did the killing, until the CSI staff determine she was drowned in a bathtub and then placed in the ocean because she had fresh water in her lungs. There are cameo appearances by some veteran actors like: June Allyson, (Mrs. Watkins), Tom Ewell, (Cop), Peter Lawford, (Mr. Campbell). and Edmond O'Brien, (Liquor Store Owner) Abel Marsh and Kate Bingham, (Katherine Ross) meet and they both burn up the screen with some torrid love making. If you like James Garner, you will enjoy his great acting in this film. Enjoy