I've got a heart, I think it's bigger than yours because it lets people in who constantly disappoint me.

White Dog
Samuel Fuller 1982 USA
Starring: Kristy McNichol, Jameson Parker, Burl Ives, Paul Winfield

The American director Samuel Fuller never really got the appreciation he deserved and, despite having been at the helm of classics such as Shock Corridor, Pickup On South Street, The Big Red One and Park Row, certainly never gained the name value or recognition of many of his peers. His 1982 rendering of Romain Gary's novel White Dog is not a classic but perhaps encapsulates this lack of acknowledgement better than any of his other work as, in truth, he only got the gig in the first place after Roman Polanski fled the country (for reasons that have been overstated with such fervour that I won't bother to go into them), several replacements pleasingly clashed with the studio's depressing vision of "Jaws with paws" and the threat of strikes by the writers guild convinced producers to choose someone on the payroll with suitable experience of bringing in a decent film on a small budget and short schedule so they'd have something in reserve, and even then they ended up shelving it with a despondent Fuller moving to France and never making another Hollywood film. In a way you can see their point as a cynical portrait of a fictional attempt to recondition a dog trained to kill black people was never going to be a feel-good crowdpleaser but it's still a great shame because the film displays his ability brilliantly and so easily could have fallen into risible preaching or ill-fated monster movie territory. Thankfully though this never happens and Fuller actually turns Gary's story on its head and creates a thoughtful narrative about the level to which racism can be learned and unlearned with an almost Lynchian atmosphere that, at times, is so prevalent that when the writer/director boyfriend of the main character Julie suggests he create a story about her and the stray dog she's taken in so that he can direct and she can act in it you sort of wonder if that's what we're seeing, a film within a film if you like. Fuller's knowledge of genre also figures with Julie (a decent if mostly subdued Kristy McNichol) the naïve, possibly virginal young heroine living alone and facing stranger danger from her nameless adoptee/interloper. In making the villain of the piece, if indeed you can call him that (that is one of the chief themes), a pure white German Shepherd he also flips the Western stereotype of black and white representing good and evil while also evoking the all-encompassing hoods of the Ku Klux Klan. There's even an allegory of the ingrained misogyny some attribute to society with the female protagonist in jeopardy from a seemingly gentle, affectionate and protective but actually malevolent loved one within her own home and, at one point, from an attempted rapist who the attending policeman recognises as a repeat offender he's prosecuted for the crime before and who hasn't been (and perhaps can't be) rehabilitated. Ennio Morricone's score is typically first-rate too. Some view the film's basic nature as being an unfortunate waste of Fuller's considerable talent, a point that there is some truth to, but it's hard not to admire his blunt, dignified treatment and the sheer intelligence he lends to proceedings.