‘Lassie Come Home’ or — Pup-aganda?
I’d always assumed that ‘Lassie Come Home’ (1943) was about a young boy and his dog struggling to be reunited after being reluctantly separated, and although that is undeniably what happens in ‘Lassie Come Home’ I’m not sure that’s what the film is about. So, what is it about? I think it’s about families torn apart by war, although I could be completely wrong and talking such a load of incomprehensible nonsense I might as well be barking at you.
‘Lassie Come Home’ might take place in Depression-era Yorkshire but this is still a movie made by a nation, America, in the midst of WW II, and the film wastes no time in highlighting the terrible consequences of conflict by opening with a text crawl informing the audience that the novel’s author, Eric Knight, survived the Great War only to be killed in military service in 1942. Is this essential information for watching a story about a boy and his dog? Not in the slightest, but it’s the entire crux of what follows.
Little Joe Carraclough (Roddy McDowall) returns home from school one day to discover his pet dog, Lassie, has been conscripted, I mean sold to a wealthy dog-breeder. However, after Lassie keeps escaping to return to little Joe the decision is make to transport the dog to Scotland in the belief that the immense distance will finally keep the two apart.
Yet when Lassie tunnels her way to freedom, slips past the guards, kills some Germans then jumps on a motorcycle she… sorry, I think I’m getting my movies mixed-up.
Although, am I? Because the only real difference between Lassie and Steve McQueen is that rather than throwing a baseball against a cell wall, she’d be chasing one.
Then there’s the scenes at little Joe’s home where, besides all the talk of Yorkshire poverty (although it’s hard to take their poverty too seriously when it’s designed by Cedric Gibbons), the absence of Lassie is spoken of as unavoidable, an inevitable result of the condition of the nation at large. By the time they start admitting that Lassie’s place is, indeed, firmly back in the family home you can’t help but think that yes, all this would move any animal lover to tears but for a family watching this with a son or loved one away fighting overseas it would’ve been emotionally devastating.
Fortunately, ‘Lassie Come Home’ is still highly enjoyable even when viewed purely as a canine adventure movie. It’s beautifully shot, packed with incident and rousing excitement and the performances are sweetly touching, even if the Yorkshire accents are so theatrically daft I occasionally found it easier understanding the dogs than the humans. The film also stars a young Elizabeth Taylor, although her performance is so unnaturally haughty and weird she comes across less like a child and more like a miniturised adult.
My only real complaint was what with her long face, elongated nose and furry chin that, from certain angles, Lassie frequently looked exactly like Mike Rutherford from Genesis.
Anyway, maybe I’m talking a complete load of bollocks and that ‘Lassie Come Home’ has absolutely nothing to do with war and is simply about a dog returning to her family, and that’s all. So, with that in mind, I’m looking forward to watching the sequels, a series which includes ‘The Courage of Lassie’ (1946), a film where Lassie is conscripted into the army, becomes a war hero, suffers PTSD then, on returning home, starts terrorising all the woodland animals so the authorities have to track her down and kill her, meaning it’s a precursor to ‘First Blood’ (1982) which makes Lassie… Rambo?!
Yeah, I don’t think these films are about dogs after all.
