I was a big time Lassie and Rin Tin Tin fan back in the mid Fifties, but I never ran across Rusty till today on Turner Classics. He's at the center of your classic 'boy who cries wolf' story once too often, when owner Danny (Ted Donaldson) gets caught in a cover up that impacts the entire town of Lawtonville. A good alternate title for this picture might have been 'The Stinky Rooney Water Caper', but then Rusty wouldn't have been mentioned as the draw for the picture, as he was for a series of these adventures back in the late Forties.
I was puzzled by the opening scene when Danny's dad, Hugh Mitchell (John Litel) excuses himself from the card game at the fire department. Stating that it would be nice to surprise his wife by getting home as early as 7:15, the next moment he's catching his son scamper up a ladder to his bedroom with Rusty at a quarter to midnight. That must have been a long walk home.
There are a few scenes in the picture that wouldn't pass muster today - for one, Danny gets the strap behind closed doors for telling another fib. Not that it doesn't happen, just not in the movies. But at least that was more believable than seeing the doctor (Mona Barrie) make house calls. I can actually remember a doctor making a house call to my home when my father suffered burns to his legs in an accident. I just can't remember when the practice actually went out of fashion.
Much of the story centers around Hugh Mitchell's run for mayor, and the trouble caused by Danny's handling of an accident at the new doctor's office lab. The incident reverberates throughout the entire community, and even winds up costing Citizen of the Year Tucker (Whitford Kane) his trusted canine friend Moreover. I don't think the story had to go that far to make it's point, but who am I to say.
Actually, I don't think a film like "My Dog Rusty" is a bad thing for a youngster to see today. It packs a lot more message into it's sixty seven minute run time than a whole boat load of current day fare, and it's something a kid can relate to. Come to think of it, we could probably use a lot more Rusty, Lassie, and Rin Tin Tin stories today, especially if your kid starts out like Dennis the Menace.
I was puzzled by the opening scene when Danny's dad, Hugh Mitchell (John Litel) excuses himself from the card game at the fire department. Stating that it would be nice to surprise his wife by getting home as early as 7:15, the next moment he's catching his son scamper up a ladder to his bedroom with Rusty at a quarter to midnight. That must have been a long walk home.
There are a few scenes in the picture that wouldn't pass muster today - for one, Danny gets the strap behind closed doors for telling another fib. Not that it doesn't happen, just not in the movies. But at least that was more believable than seeing the doctor (Mona Barrie) make house calls. I can actually remember a doctor making a house call to my home when my father suffered burns to his legs in an accident. I just can't remember when the practice actually went out of fashion.
Much of the story centers around Hugh Mitchell's run for mayor, and the trouble caused by Danny's handling of an accident at the new doctor's office lab. The incident reverberates throughout the entire community, and even winds up costing Citizen of the Year Tucker (Whitford Kane) his trusted canine friend Moreover. I don't think the story had to go that far to make it's point, but who am I to say.
Actually, I don't think a film like "My Dog Rusty" is a bad thing for a youngster to see today. It packs a lot more message into it's sixty seven minute run time than a whole boat load of current day fare, and it's something a kid can relate to. Come to think of it, we could probably use a lot more Rusty, Lassie, and Rin Tin Tin stories today, especially if your kid starts out like Dennis the Menace.