A trainer attempts to retrain a vicious dog that's been raised to attack black people.A trainer attempts to retrain a vicious dog that's been raised to attack black people.A trainer attempts to retrain a vicious dog that's been raised to attack black people.
- Awards
- 1 nomination total
Helen Siff
- Pound Operator
- (as Helen J. Siff)
Glen Garner
- Pound Worker
- (as Glen D. Garner)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThis film is based on a true story. While she was living in Hollywood with her husband, writer Romain Gary, actress Jean Seberg brought home a large white dog she had found on the street that seemed friendly and playful. However, when the animal saw her Black gardener, it attacked him viciously, injuring him. Afterward, the couple kept it in the backyard, but one day, it got out and attacked another Black man on the street, but no one else. After this happened a third time, they realized that someone had trained the dog to attack and injure only Black people. Gary wrote a short piece about it for "Life" magazine in 1970, which eventually became a full-length fiction novel.
- GoofsJust before the white dog finally takes the hamburger from his trainer, he looks up at him and, just under his lip, shows the edge of the prosthetics that hold his cheeks in a snarl.
- Quotes
Roland Gray: You got a four-legged time bomb!
- ConnectionsFeatured in From the Journals of Jean Seberg (1995)
Featured review
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!
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!
- How long is White Dog?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Language
- Also known as
- Der weiße Hund von Beverly Hills
- Filming locations
- Production company
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $8,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $46,509
- Gross worldwide
- $46,509
- Runtime1 hour 30 minutes
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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