Dressé pour tuer

Meandering at times, but sensitive thriller about a white-colored, racist dog trained to attack African-Americans. Kristy McNichol nurses him back to health after hitting him with her car, soon learning his true nature and dedicating herself to curing the gorgeous but brainwashed creature. The random scenes of attack on black characters--one in slow-motion--are probably what doomed this film's chances at getting a theatrical release (it played Mexico, but only "preview performances" in the US). True, they are upsetting, but deliberately so. They are necessary in showing the reasoning of what happens next, but that certainly doesn't erase the controversial undermining. McNichol has a difficult time getting a grip on her character (we don't get a good idea of who she is either), but the actress's mere presence is reassuring--she's like a lovely ray. Paul Winfield gives his best performance ever as the black man who attempts to retrain the dog, knowing how slim his chances are. Some shots are repetitive, and Ennio Morricone's music is as well--though I found the passages lovely and melancholic. The slow motion taxed my patience, however all is nearly redeemed by that final shot. What tragic beauty there is in it, what a loss of innocence for all concerned. **1/2 from ****

White Dog (1982) is about an attack dog specifically trained to attack and kill black people. Some obviously shocking moments and plenty awkward acting and closeups. The dog acting was Oscar worthy. Shame Kristy McNichol didn't take tips, her performance was amateurish and off-putting throughout. The whole the film has a made for TV movie feel it can't quite shake. A remake with a bigger budget would be interesting but no one would have the balls to make this now.

I can't let this be the only comment for White Dog.

The best film about racism and hatred I've ever seen, with the basic message that hatred isn't something a child is born with, it's something they have been taught. And the question is raised, can you un-teach them?

A black animal trainer (Paul Winfield) attempts to re-train an attack dog taught to kill people with black skin.

Paramount tucked it's tail between it's legs when protesters who had never seen the film claimed it was the work of racists.

Fuller moved to France and never made another American movie. (He made one in France)

PS: to the lady above me, that annoying piano is Ennio Morricone and he has forgotten more about music than you will ever know.

If you get the chance, by all means see this movie, but try to leave your preconceptions aside.

Before this movie came out, it was roundly denounced by people who misunderstood what it is about. The story is not, as many feared, about a dog trained to attack black people. It is the story of a man (Paul Winfield) and his determination to do something that everyone says cannot be done - FREE the dog of its programming. Unfortunately, it seems that too few people were able to break THEIR programming and give this movie a chance.

Where are all the protesters who gather whenever some idiot tries to censor artwork or expression that is contrary to American culture? None of them seem to have shown up when this great work was put on the shelf, then later chopped up. Europeans, with an open eye to American society (only due to the benefit of being distant), were able to see this film with honesty. I say this because that's where it was shown uncut and critically acclaimed.

The truth is that it is a statement about and against racism, completely misunderstood by the civil rights groups and the others who opposed it. It is a good, hard look at the way racism is propagated in America, through the training of not only this one single dog, but of young people by racist adults and peers as the young people mature into adulthood. It tackles the subject with an honesty that is sadly missing in the statements of most anti-racist organizations.

Most groups prefer to gloss over the true causes of racism with platitudes, and a few often have a political agenda that promotes socialistic ideals, so they really don't give full attention to the true causes of racism. Everybody now is so afraid of offending anybody else, that everything becomes a watered-down, grayish, inoffensive litany no more bothersome than grouchiness. Sam Fuller stated in film what it really is, and that is that people learn from others throughout childhood, not always by overt indoctrination but by subtle methods, to think in stereotypical and racist terms. Not just whites thinking of blacks as uneducated gangster-rappers, but also those who think of Native Americans as lazy drinkers, Italians as loud-mouthed mob disciples, country folks as hillbilly trailer trash, and so on.

And Hollywood does little of significance to dispel this, because they mostly grind things down to these kind of stereotypes to fit into the 2-hr film story mode that they like, which is long on violence, sex and action, and short on character. It's easier that way. Thanks to Sam Fuller for his courage.

ADDENDUM: I had the opportunity to see this again recently after 25 years, and it is still as powerful as I remembered. It does have a B-movie quality to it, a roughness that actually makes it better than if it had been a polished film. The final sequence remains as terrifying as anything I've seen in any type of film, horror, suspense, Hitchcock, and so on. And it has a fabulous music score by Ennio Morricone. I'd confidently call this one a must-see!