From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue May 11 15:33:07 1999 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!nntp.primenet.com!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: John Smyth Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Retrospective: A Boy and his Dog (1975) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 7 May 1999 05:10:19 GMT Organization: None Lines: 84 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <7gtsjr$j1k$1@nntp3.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer14.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp3.u.washington.edu 926053819 19508 (None) 140.142.17.37 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #18130 Keywords: author=smyth X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer14.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:17360 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2287 A BOY AND HIS DOG (1975) Rating = **** out of ****** http://www.reviewfilm.com The year is 2024 and Earth has been rendered desolate by a nuclear war. Vic (Don Johnson) is a teenager who is trying to survive by foraging amongst the wastelands of post-apocalyptic USA. Life is dangerous since many of the other foragers are deranged lunatics with a penchant for killing anything that moves. Vic has only one friend - his dog, Blood, who can communicate with Vic via telepathy. Blood has plenty of guile and worldly wisdom, and Vic relies on him to keep them both alive in such a dangerous environment. Vic's primary concern is to find food and water, but being a young man of a certain age, he is also looking for women. Alas, finding a woman is no easy task since groups of marauding 'rippers' rape and kill any woman they find. However, in the basement of a building, he spies on a woman, Quilla June (Susanne Benton) and is fascinated by her body as she dresses, unaware of Vic's presence. After some initial protests, she has sex with him, and tells him of an underground community which is much safer than the surface. Leaving Blood behind (against the dog's better judgement), he follows her and discovers a puritanical community led by Lou Craddock (Jason Robards). On the face of it, a post-apocalyptic world and a talking dog may seem like a bizarre scenario but A boy and his Dog is quite an enjoyable sci-fi tale (and has become something of a cult classic). Blood's voice is done as a narration, the cheapest way of conveying telepathic messages and Tim McIntire gravely voice (as Blood) strikes just the right notes of irony and wisdom. Don Johnson, the pastel coloured cop who would elevate the act of staring into space to an art form in Miami Vice, is quite good as the enthusiastic but naive, teenager. The film takes a firm swipe at American society, particularly when the action moves underground. Vic is initially delighted when he finds that, due to a lack of fertile men, he must 'service' all the women in the community. He is not so happy when he finds out the consequence of his eager acceptance of that task. Craddock's society is a sick parody of what had existed before the nuclear war, and not much better or liberated than the misery on the surface. The analogy of the suppressed underground society, and the suppressed emotions and undercurrent of 1970's society is hammered home, but the film works just as well as a straightforward sci-fi tale. This was L.Q. Jones last directorial effort as a moviemaker - he had previously made a low-budget horror movie called The Devil's Bedroom (1964). However, he has had a long and varied career as an actor (he appeared in The Mask of Zorro last year), mainly in Westerns both in film and TV. He appeared with Elvis in his one serious movie (The Flaming Star,1960), with Clint Eastwood in Hang Em High (1967), before hooking up with Sam Peckinpah, which led to roles in Ride the High Country (1960), Major Dundee (1965), The Wild Bunch (1969), The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970) and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973). One could possibly regard A Boy and his Dog (which was also entitled, somewhat luridly, as Psycho Boy and his Killer Dog) as a subversion of the typical western, just as Peckinpah's later work (particularly The Wild Bunch and Pat Garrett...) would transform the concept of the noble hero into an amoral anti-hero. Tim McIntire provided the voice of Blood and also composed the music for the film (he would commit suicide in 1986). The movie is based on a story by Harlan Ellison, who has a long history in science fiction on TV and movies. Currently a script consultant for Babylon 5, he has written for The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits and Star Trek, and has a story credit for The Terminator, which was added just before that movie's release. (Legend has it that when Ellison had protested that the Terminator storyline was very similar to a story he had written for TV, Cameron's lawyers were going to contest his claim. They swiftly changed their minds when they found out that Cameron had boasted to the film crew that he had cobbled the Terminator story together from a couple of Outer Limits episodes). Despite the low budget, the film is nevertheless entertaining, thanks to Jones' assured direction, the black humour of the script and the performances of the eponymous heroes. And the best scene is the very last one. Directed by L.Q. Jones (c) Review of Film, Stockholm Film Review ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Jun 7 23:16:46 2001 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!news.u.washington.edu!140.142.17.34.MISMATCH!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: "Dragan Antulov" Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Retrospective: A Boy and His Dog (1975) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 5 Jun 2001 00:07:47 GMT Organization: None Lines: 91 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <9fh7sj$nq6$1@nntp3.u.washington.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: homer22.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp3.u.washington.edu 991699667 24390 (None) 140.142.17.40 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu Summary: r.a.m.r. #28363 Keywords: author=antulov X-Questions-to: graham@jetcity.com X-Submissions-to: graham@ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer22.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:26542 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2842 A BOY AND HIS DOG (1975) A Film Review Copyright Dragan Antulov 2001 When people hear the phrase "post-apocalyptic" films, they usually think about extremely violent low budget action films, set in deserts that are supposed to represent the modern civilisation turned into wasteland. Most of these films were made in late 1970s and early 1980s, inspired by the success of George Miller's MAD MAX 2 and new-born fears of nuclear annihilation in Reagan's year. However, post- apocalyptic films were made before late 1970s and they didn't always belong to the area of action genre. One of such examples is A BOY AND HIS DOG, 1975 black comedy directed by L.Q. Jones and based on the award-winning novella by well- known science fiction author Harlan Ellison. The plot of this film is set in Arizona in the year 2024 A.D. The world had been devastated by nuclear war seventeen years ago, and the surface of the Earth is turned into desert, roamed by various drifters in search of food, drink and shelter. One of them is Vic (played by Don Johnson), eighteen-year-old boy whose only companion is Blood (voice by Tim McIntire), dog with whom he has telepathic connection. Blood's instincts, wisdom, knowledge experience help Vic in his everyday search for food, but so far Vic can't find the only thing on his mind - a girl. Finally, two of them stumble on a girl in the form of young Quilla June Holmes (played by Susan Benton) and rescue her from homicidal rapists and mutants. After a night of passionate love Quilla disappears and Vic, against Blood's better judgement, goes looking for her in the underground, where some remnants of civilisation survived and turned into grotesque version of ultraconservative America. The underground men are sterile and Vic finds out that he had been lured down in order to impregnate underground women, but this task turns out to be anything but pleasant. After the opening scenes of A BOY AND HIS DOG, when scenes of nuclear explosions serve as backdrop for authors' commentary on contemporary world, viewers instantly know that he is going to watch black comedy, but hardly anything can prepare them for the surprise and macabre twist at the end - probably one of the best finales in the history of cult movies. Between those two points we have an opportunity to watch Don Johnson of MIAMI VICE fame in his early days, when he very believably plays young, horny teenager. However, the best thing about whole film is his interaction with dog and Tim McIntire whose voice always spews critical and right-on- target comments on boy's mundane and irresponsible behaviour. The dialogue is extremely funny and very entertaining, and Susan Benton also adds them additional dimension when she enters the picture. Unfortunately, in the segments that deal with underground society, writer and director L.Q. Jones goes overboard with his grotesque attempt of satire on conformist and semi-totalitarian tendencies of small- town America. Those segments provide opportunity for great Jason Robards Jr. to give quite effective portrayal of soulless bureaucrat, but that performance doesn't improve general impression. Another problem with this film is obvious lack of budget that forced filmmakers to shoot many scenes underground or at night; inadequate lighting make many happenings on the screen incomprehensible to the viewer. Those who are patient and forgiving enough are going to be awarded with good acting, sharp dialogue and effective black humour, so the cult reputation of A BOY AND HIS DOG is well deserved. RATING: 6/10 (++) Written on June 2nd 2001 Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax Fido: 2:381/100 E-mail: drax@purger.com E-mail: dragan.antulov@altbbs.fido.hr Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in Croatian http://film.purger.com Movie Reviews by Drax http://www.purger.com/users/drax/reviews.htm Movie Reviews on IMDb http://us.imdb.com/ReviewsBy?Dragan+Antulov --