''Lad: A Dog'' is a 1962 American
drama film
In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...
based on the 1919 novel
of the same name written by
Albert Payson Terhune
Albert Payson Terhune (December 21, 1872 – February 18, 1942) was an American writer, dog breeder, and journalist. He was popular for his novels relating the adventures of his beloved collies and as a breeder of collies at his Sunnybank Kenne ...
. Starring
Peter Breck,
Peggy McCay,
Carroll O'Connor, and
Angela Cartwright, the film blends several of the short stories featured in the novel, with the heroic Lad winning a rigged dog show, saving a handicapped girl from a snake, and capturing a poacher who killed his pups and injured one of his owners.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...
purchased the film rights for the novel from
Vanguard Productions, and acquired the film rights for the other two Lad novels from the late Terhune's wife.
Aram Avakian
Aram A. Avakian (April 23, 1926 – January 17, 1987) was an American film editor and director. His work in the latter role includes ''Jazz on a Summer's Day'' (1959) and the indie film '' End of the Road'' (1970).
Life and work
Aram "Al" Ava ...
was initially selected to be the film's director, but when he continually refused to do a sentimental-type dog story, he was replaced by
Leslie H. Martinson.
Lillie Hayward and Roberta Hodes wrote the screenplay for the film, adapting several of the short stories from the novel to create a single narrative, and adding in an all-purpose villain. The film was released on June 6, 1962. The studio hoped it would be successful enough to be followed by a second film and a television series. Though it has been praised by fans and modern reviewers, contemporary critiques felt Terhune's work did not translate well to film and it was considered a low-budget
B-movie
A B movie, or B film, is a type of cheap, low-budget commercial motion picture. Originally, during the Classical Hollywood cinema, Golden Age of Hollywood, this term specifically referred to films meant to be shown as the lesser-known second ...
. It was released to
home video
Home video is recorded media sold or Video rental shop, rented for home viewing. The term originates from the VHS and Betamax era, when the predominant medium was videotapes, but has carried over to optical disc formats such as DVD and Blu-ray. ...
in 1995.
Plot
Purebred
rough collie Lad and his owners, Stephen (
Peter Breck) and Elizabeth Tremayne (
Peggy McCay), are visited by their wealthy neighbor Hamilcar Q. Glure (
Carroll O'Connor) and his 8-year-old daughter Angela (
Angela Cartwright), who is crippled from
polio
Poliomyelitis ( ), commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 75% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe ...
. While Lad befriends the girl, Glure invites the Tremaynes to show the prize-winning Lad at his upcoming
dog show. However, Glure is jealous of Lad's success and has rigged one event to have such specialized rules that he believes only his recently purchased high-priced, English-trained collie can win. During the competition, which involves directing the dogs through a tricky set of a maneuvers, Lad is able to complete the course, while Glure's champion does not recognize the hand signals Glure makes while holding a
cigar
A cigar is a rolled bundle of dried and Fermentation, fermented tobacco leaves made to be Tobacco smoking, smoked. Cigars are produced in a variety of sizes and shapes. Since the 20th century, almost all cigars are made of three distinct comp ...
.
Later, Lad saves Glure's daughter Angela from a poisonous snake by knocking her backwards to get her out of harm's way, then fighting and killing the snake, getting bitten in the process. Her nurse (
Alice Pearce) initially does not see the snake, and begins beating Lad for "attacking" the little girl. Distraught, Angela stands and walks for the first time since her illness to stop the nurse's abuse of her friend. Lad disappears for three days, reappearing covered in mud but cured of the poison.
Lad is bred with another prize-winning collie, Lady, and they have two male puppies which are named Little Lad and Wolf. Angela is allowed her choice of one as a present to her when they are old enough to leave their mother & she chooses Little Lad. However, Jackson White (Jack Daly), a poacher Lad fought and chased off the property before, sets fire to barn out of vengeance. Elizabeth is injured and Little Lad is killed but not Wolf. Lad later aids in capturing White when he breaks into the house to try to steal Lad's gold trophy from the dog show. Angela is initially inconsolable over the loss of her puppy Little Lad, and refuses to have anything to do with Wolf. After he is nearly lost in another accident, she changes her mind and accepts Wolf as her new dog.
Production
Max J. Rosenberg, of
Vanguard Productions, purchased the film rights for
Albert Payson Terhune
Albert Payson Terhune (December 21, 1872 – February 18, 1942) was an American writer, dog breeder, and journalist. He was popular for his novels relating the adventures of his beloved collies and as a breeder of collies at his Sunnybank Kenne ...
's ''
Lad: A Dog'' from publisher
E.P. Dutton, then later sold the rights to
Warner Brothers
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (WBEI), commonly known as Warner Bros. (WB), is an American filmed entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California and the main namesake subsidiary of Warner Bro ...
. When the studio learned of the other two Lad novels, ''
Further Adventures of Lad'' and ''
Lad of Sunnybank'', they were concerned to learn that Dutton had the rights to only the first novel, as they were hoping the film would be successful enough to develop a sequel and possibly a television series. Executive Bruce Chapman negotiated for the film rights for the other two novels with Anice Terhune, the wife of the late author. She set up a foundation, Terhune Lad Stories, Inc, to negotiate the rights for other two novels. All told, Warner paid $25,000 for the rights to all three books, though the bulk of the funds went to Dutton.
Warner Brothers initially hired
Aram Avakian
Aram A. Avakian (April 23, 1926 – January 17, 1987) was an American film editor and director. His work in the latter role includes ''Jazz on a Summer's Day'' (1959) and the indie film '' End of the Road'' (1970).
Life and work
Aram "Al" Ava ...
, a "talented, aggressive young ex-film editor" known for his
avant-garde
In the arts and literature, the term ''avant-garde'' ( meaning or ) identifies an experimental genre or work of art, and the artist who created it, which usually is aesthetically innovative, whilst initially being ideologically unacceptable ...
tendencies, to direct the film.
The studio wanted a sentimental dog story that played true to the novel, which Avakian opposed.
In a 1969 ''
Life
Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...
'' interview, Avakian stated that he "wanted to make a kind of pop, camp thing that wouldn't be a complete ordeal for parents" while everyone else involved in the production wanted "
Dick, Jane and Doggie".
Jack Warner, then head of the studio, eventually fired him, bringing the more conventional
Leslie H. Martinson to complete the film.
Peter Breck and
Peggy McCay were cast as Lad's owners, renamed to Stephen and Elizabeth Tremayne. Veteran actor
Carroll O'Connor was hired to play the pompous and newly wealthy Hamilcar Q. Glure, with the role of his daughter played by
Angela Cartwright, a noted young actress who had starred in ''
The Danny Thomas Show
''The Danny Thomas Show'' (titled ''Make Room for Daddy'' for its first three seasons) is an American sitcom that ran from 1953 to 1957 on ABC and from 1957 to 1964 on CBS. Starring Danny Thomas as a successful night club entertainer, the sho ...
''. To cast the role of Lad, a talent search was conducted, eventually resulting in the selection of a collie from the
San Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley, known locally as the Valley, is an urbanized valley in Los Angeles County, Los Angeles County, California. Situated to the north of the Los Angeles Basin, it comprises a large portion of Los Angeles, the Municipal corpo ...
who was credited simply as "Lad". The film is set in a modified version of the Place, with
Pompton Lake reduced to a river with a large dock. The house, though similar to the real Terhune home, even including duplicates of the stone lions on the veranda, was built on a scale three times larger than the original.
Well-known screenwriter
Lillie Hayward, and newcomer Roberta Hodes, were hired to adapt the novel for film. They combined several of the stories from the novel, modifying characters to create a single flowing narrative. For example, the crippled girl who was a neighbor girl in the original novel became Glure's daughter. Noting Terhune's frequent disdain for the
Ramapough Mountain Indians, they named the film's villain Jackson White, a play on the nickname used to refer to those people. White became the catch all villain of the film, who poaches deer, sets fire to the Tremayne barn, and break into the house to try to steal a gold trophy won by Lad.
''Lad: A Dog'' was released to theaters on June 6, 1962.
The 98 minute film was released to
VHS
VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s.
Ma ...
format on January 31, 1995.
Reception
The film was considered to be a "B-movie" for its low production budget. Terhune biographer Irving Litvag praised O'Connor's performance as Glure, feeling his talent made him "seem human" and "a person of dignity and love" versus Terhune's "overdrawn and exaggerated" silly character. He felt the setting and cinematography was "typical Hollywood overstatement", and that as a whole found that Terhune's "sentimental writing" did not do well in film form, calling the resulting film "cloying" and a "minor, unsung film." However, he noted that fans of the novels seemed to thoroughly enjoy the film, suspecting part of it was the "handsome collie" found to play the titular role, and seeing the names of the beloved collies they knew on the screen.
A ''
New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' reviewer called it a "bucolic drama of no discernible merit".
The ''
Monthly Film Bulletin
The ''Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 until April 1991, when it merged with '' Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those wi ...
'' praised the dog actors, but felt the film was "stultifyingly mawkish, with a touch of supposed humor contributed by an allegedly English chauffeur". Bob Ross, of the ''
Tampa Tribune
''The Tampa Tribune'' was a daily newspaper published in Tampa, Florida. Along with the competing ''Tampa Bay Times'', the ''Tampa Tribune'' was one of two major newspapers published in the Tampa Bay area.
The newspaper also published a ''St. P ...
'', considered it to be an "earnest, well-acted story".
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic, film historian, and author. He is known for his book of film capsule reviews, '' Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide'', published from 1969 to 2014. Maltin was the film criti ...
felt it was a "genuine if schmaltzy" adaptation of the novel.
References
External links
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{{good article
1962 films
1962 drama films
American drama films
Films based on American novels
Films about dogs
Films directed by Leslie H. Martinson
Warner Bros. films
Films scored by Heinz Roemheld
Films directed by Aram Avakian
1960s English-language films
1960s American films