White Dog

Colour, 35 mm
USA, 1982, 90 min
Section: Tribute to Samuel Fuller

Synopsis

For his repeated denunciation of racial intolerance alone, Sam Fuller must be regarded as a major American artist of the 20th century. While in The Steel Helmet (1951) and Shock Corridor (1963) criticism of prejudice against black Americans is one of many motifs, in Fuller’s last Hollywood film racism became the main theme. Based on the story by French writer Romain Gary, Fuller wrote the script with screenwriter and director Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential). A young actress named Julie adopts a white German shepherd she accidentally hits one night with her car. Soon, however, she is confronted by the shocking realization that at an early age the dog was trained by its former master to attack African Americans. The radical story suited Sam Fuller’s disposition perfectly, and in White Dog he puts forward a timeless, controversial metaphor about "man’s best friend” as a creature that can be programmed for racial intolerance. Fuller, who throughout his life believed in the phenomenon of (self) education as a means of improving oneself, considered Keys (Paul Winfield) the most important character, a black animal trainer obsessed by his efforts to "cure” the dog of hatred. Although one of the seminal pictures of Fuller’s late period, Paramount Studios deep-sixed the film for ten years.