Samuel Fuller directs Kristy McNichol, Paul Winfield and Burl Ives in this parable about a stray dog programmed to attack black people.

Controversially dumped in America when Paramount were threatened with boycotts due to racist content, here we have a film blatantly critical of racist attitudes that clearly became a scapegoat in changing times. I first heard about White Dog in an Empire article “50 Five Star Movies You’ve Never Seen” which also included the brilliant Fail Safe (if anyone has a stack of mid nineties back issues to hand please post this list online as it it is unfindable currently). I’m still getting into Fuller as a director and can see what he is trying to achieve here but the film has dated in every way except its progressive attitudes. The horror elements that make up the first half now seem cheesy and weak. Until Winfield and Ives’ duo of dangerous animal trainers turn up midway through the performances are correspondingly ropey too. Once they start risking life and limb to reprogram the dog’s hateful conditioning it becomes a far better film. One that is filled with curiously subversive moments – not least of which the one when Winfield performs a salacious striptease to the dog to flaunt his black skin. A B-movie then that still has a powerful message but probably needs a few more decades before being discovered so that its tonally shifting mix can be excused by future viewers as “a product of its time”. Currently what is experimental and what is lurid filmmaking jar awfully to someone well versed in 80s genre cinema. Finally, and maybe most importantly, the dog acting is excellent so whether cliched or didactic the scenes are all emotionally involving.

6