Behave Yourself! (1951)

When a cute Welsh terrier follows Bill Denny home, little does he know that all gangland has its eye on that dog. Who will be bumbling Bill's undoing - the gangsters, the cops, or his suspicious mother-in-law?

Director:

George Beck

Writers:

George Beck (screenplay), George Beck (story),

Stars:

Farley Granger, Shelley Winters, William Demarest

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Farley Granger	...	William Calhoun 'Bill' Denny
Shelley Winters	...	Kate Denny
William Demarest	...	Officer O'Ryan
Francis L. Sullivan	...	Fat Freddy
Margalo Gillmore	...	Mother
Lon Chaney Jr.	...	Pinky (as Lon Chaney)
Hans Conried	...	Robert 'Gillie the Blade' Gillespie
Elisha Cook Jr.	...	Albert Jonas
Glenn Anders	...	Pete the Pusher
Allen Jenkins	...	Plainclothesman
Sheldon Leonard	...	Shortwave Bert
Marvin Kaplan	...	Max the Umbrella
Archie	...	Himself - Dog
Henry Corden	...	Numi

Storyline

Beyond living in his disapproving mother-in-law's house while he establishes his accounting career, Bill Denny is happily married to Kate Denny, the two who are celebrating their second wedding anniversary. Bill thinks he's come home without a present for Kate since a stray Welsh terrier caused a ruckus in the store where he was going to buy the present. However Kate believes her anniversary present is the terrier who followed Bill home and who Kate eventually names Archie. What neither Bill or Kate is aware of is that the terrier escaped from its owners, a bunch a smugglers who trained the terrier to be the contact for the switch between the smuggled goods and the money. Bill does whatever he can to get rid of the terrier as he and Archie don't get along. Meanwhile, the people buying the smuggled goods believe the smugglers have swindled them since the terrier has not made contact. So when ads appear in the lost and found section about a missing Welsh terrier, Bill, in trying to ...

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Plot Keywords:

dog | mother in law | dog attack | homicide department | shot in the head | 

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Taglines:

OH! The things that go ON ... and ON ... and ON!

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Genres:

Comedy | Crime

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

September 1951 (USA)

Also Known As:

Symphonie en 6.35

Filming Locations:

Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Wald/Krasna Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

81 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Classic pin-up artist, Vargas, painted the film's original poster.

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Goofs

Plot hinges on a small trained dog who is shipped to Los Angeles by crooks, with message that if dog is walked on Wilshire Boulevard, he will lead crooks to their criminal contact. However, Wilshire is one of city's longest streets (16 miles) and instructions don't indicate either what area of this street dog is to be walked or even which side, meaning the dog would conceivably have to be walked 32 miles.

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Crazy Credits

The end credits begin with the words "Cast, in the order of their disappearance".

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Soundtracks

"Behave Yourself!"
by Lew Spence and Buddy Ebsen

User Reviews

The dog has it.

A little dog turns out to be the most interesting feature of this film. This dog is the only lead for the "gangland buyers of the counterfeit money" to find the counterfeiters on Wilshire Blvd. Archie "the dog" has other plans and adopts Farley Granger and Shelley Winters as his family. Now the scramble by the gangsters to find the dog intensifies. Murder seems to follow this "pooch" and brings Granger to the center of all the mayhem. An amusing dog tale which ends answering the question "what if man bites dog."