A Dog's Best Friend

This low-budget movie has the look of a TV picture with such a simplistic drama of a boy and his dog. Shot in black and white with cheap sets and even less competent direction than a children's show of the time. The script is clunky and unnatural just like events during the movie such as the foster father sending his older son to disarm the troubled child who is guarded by a dangerous German Shepherd. Actually, thoroughly corny just like the rest of the plot involving murder, child trauma, and violence. The orphan boy, Pip, carries the movie as he appears in almost every scene and the boy actor (Roger Mobley) does a good job of acting sullen and angry at the world and everyone in it except his new four-legged friend. It was good to see Harry Dean Stanton in a very early film for him looking the same as he always did. The movie is a turkey in the end.