Lassie Come Home is a 1943
MGMMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
film starring
Roddy McDowallRoderick Andrew Anthony Jude "Roddy" McDowall was an English actor and photographer. His film roles included Cornelius and Caesar in the Planet of the Apes film series...
and
canine actor, PalPal was a Rough Collie actor and the first in a line of such dogs to portray the fictional female collie Lassie in film and television. Pal was born in California in 1940 and eventually brought to the notice of Rudd Weatherwax, a Hollywood animal trainer. In 1943, the dog was chosen to play Lassie...
, in a story about the profound bond between Yorkshire boy Joe Carraclough and his
rough collieThe Rough Collie is a long coated breed of medium to large size dog that in its original form was a type of collie used and bred for herding in Scotland. Originating in the 1800's, it is now well known through the works of author Albert Payson Terhune, and through the Lassie novel, movies, and...
,
LassieLassie is a fictional collie dog character created by Eric Knight in a short story expanded to novel length called Lassie Come-Home. Published in 1940, the novel was filmed by MGM in 1943 as Lassie Come Home with a dog named Pal playing Lassie. Pal then appeared with the stage name "Lassie" in six...
. The film was directed by Fred M. Wilcox from a screenplay by
Hugo ButlerHugo D. Butler was a Canadian born screenwriter working in Hollywood who was blacklisted by the movie studios in the 1950s.-Biography:Born in Calgary, Alberta, his father had acted and written scripts in silent films...
based upon the 1940 novel
Lassie Come-Home by
Eric KnightEric Knight was an author who is mainly notable for creating the fictional collie Lassie.Born on 10 April 1897, in Menston in Yorkshire, England, Eric Mowbray Knight was the third of four sons born to Frederic Harrison and Marion Hilda Knight, both Quakers...
. The film was the first in a series of seven MGM films starring "Lassie."
The original film saw a sequel,
Son of LassieSon of Lassie is a 1945 feature film produced by MGM based on characters created by Eric Knight, and starring Peter Lawford, Donald Crisp, June Lockhart and Lassie...
in 1945 with five other films following at intervals through the 1940s. A British remake of the 1943 movie was released in 2005 as
LassieLassie is a 2005 family-based film directed by Charles Sturridge. When a family hits financial crisis, they have no choice but to sell Lassie...
to moderate success. The film has been released to VHS and DVD.
Plot
Set in
DepressionThe Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
-era Yorkshire, England, Mr. and Mrs. Carraclough are hit by hard times and forced to sell their collie, Lassie, to the rich Duke of Rudling, who has always admired her. Young Joe Carraclough grows despondent at the loss of his companion. Lassie will have nothing to do with the Duke, however, and finds ways to escape her kennels and return to Joe. The Duke finally carries Lassie to his home hundreds of miles distant in Scotland. There, his granddaughter Priscilla senses the dog's unhappiness and arranges her escape. Lassie then sets off for a long trek to her Yorkshire home and the boy who loves her. She faces many perils along the way—dog catchers and a violent storm—but also meets kind people who offer her aid and comfort. At the end, when Joe has given up hope of ever seeing his dog again, the weary Lassie returns to her favorite resting place in the schoolyard at home. There, Lassie is joyfully reunited with the boy she loves.
Cast
- Pal
Pal was a Rough Collie actor and the first in a line of such dogs to portray the fictional female collie Lassie in film and television. Pal was born in California in 1940 and eventually brought to the notice of Rudd Weatherwax, a Hollywood animal trainer. In 1943, the dog was chosen to play Lassie...
as Lassie, a collie and the companion animal to the boy, Joe Carraclough. Pal was credited as "Lassie" (rather than Pal) in the film.
- Roddy McDowall
Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude "Roddy" McDowall was an English actor and photographer. His film roles included Cornelius and Caesar in the Planet of the Apes film series...
as Joe Carraclough, a Yorkshire schoolboy and Lassie's companion human and guardian.
- Donald Crisp
Donald Crisp was an English film actor. He was also an early motion picture producer, director and screenwriter...
as Sam Carraclough, Joe's father.
- Elsa Lanchester
Elsa Sullivan Lanchester was an English-American character actress with a long career in theatre, film and television....
as Mrs. Carraclough, Joe's mother.
- Nigel Bruce
William Nigel Ernle Bruce , best known as Nigel Bruce, was a British character actor on stage and screen. He was best known for his portrayal of Doctor Watson in a series of films and in the radio series The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes...
as Duke of Rudling, grandfather to Priscilla.
- Elizabeth Taylor
Dame Elizabeth Rosemond "Liz" Taylor, DBE was a British-American actress. From her early years as a child star with MGM, she became one of the great screen actresses of Hollywood's Golden Age...
as Priscilla, a young girl sympathetic to Lassie's plight and the Duke of Rudling's granddaughter.
- Dame May Whitty as Dally, an elderly woman who aids Lassie on her journey homeward, and is married to Dan'l Fadden.
- Ben Webster
Ben Webster was a British-born actor, and the husband of actress Dame May Whitty, and father of the British-American stage actress, Margaret Webster. His father, W. S. Webster, was the son of the famous actor Benjamin Nottingham Webster.Ben Webster was born on June 2, 1864 in London and married...
as Dan'l Fadden, married to Dally.
- Edmund Gwenn
Edmund Gwenn was an English theatre and film actor.-Background:Born Edmund John Kellaway in Wandsworth, London , and educated at St. Olave's School and later at King's College London, Gwenn began his acting career in the theatre in 1895...
as Rowlie, a tinker who befriends Lassie during her trek.
- J. Pat O'Malley
James Patrick O'Malley was an English singer and character actor, who appeared in many American films and television programs during the 1940s–1970s, using the stage name J. Pat O'Malley...
as Hynes
- Alan Napier
Alan William Napier-Clavering was an English actor, best known for portraying Alfred Pennyworth in the 1960s live-action Batman television series.-Early life and career:...
as Jock
- Arthur Shields
Arthur Shields was an Irish stage and film actor.Born into an Irish Protestant family in Portobello, Dublin, he started acting in the Abbey Theatre when still a young man. He was the younger brother of Oscar-winning actor Barry Fitzgerald. An Irish nationalist, he fought in the Easter Rising of...
as Andrew
- John Rogers as Snickers
- Alec Craig as Buckles
Production
The film was shot in Washington state and
Monterey, CaliforniaThe City of Monterey in Monterey County is located on Monterey Bay along the Pacific coast in Central California. Monterey lies at an elevation of 26 feet above sea level. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 27,810. Monterey is of historical importance because it was the capital of...
, were used while the rapids scene was shot on the
San Joaquin RiverThe San Joaquin River is the largest river of Central California in the United States. At over long, the river starts in the high Sierra Nevada, and flows through a rich agricultural region known as the San Joaquin Valley before reaching Suisun Bay, San Francisco Bay, and the Pacific Ocean...
.
During the film's production, MGM executives previewing the
dailiesDailies, in filmmaking, are the raw, unedited footage shot during the making of a motion picture. They are so called because usually at the end of each day, that day's footage is developed, synched to sound, and printed on film in a batch for viewing the next day by the director and some members...
were said to be so moved that they ordered more scenes to be added to "this wonderful motion picture."
Some sources say that, initially, a female collie was selected for the title role, but was replaced when the dog began to shed excessively during shooting of the film in the summer. The trainer,
Rudd WeatherwaxRuddell Bird "Rudd" Weatherwax was an American actor and animal trainer. He and his brother Frank Weatherwax are best remembered for training dogs for motion pictures and television. Frank's collie, Pal, became the original Lassie, handled by Rudd for the 1943 MGM film Lassie Come Home...
, then substituted the male collie, Pal, in the role of "Lassie". Pal had been hired to perform the rapids stunt and, being male, looked more impressive in the part. Still other accounts, such as a 1943
New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
article written while the film was in production, say that Pal was cast by director Fred Wilcox after first being rejected, because no other dog performed satisfactorily with the "near human attributes" he sought for the canine title role. Weatherwax would later receive all rights to the Lassie name and trademark in lieu of back pay owed him by MGM.
Reception
The film was nominated for an
Academy AwardAn Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
for
Best Cinematography, ColorThe Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...
and later the character of Lassie received a Star on the Walk of Fame at 6368 Hollywood Blvd. In 1993,
Lassie Come Home was selected for preservation in the United States
National Film RegistryThe National Film Registry is the United States National Film Preservation Board's selection of films for preservation in the Library of Congress. The Board, established by the National Film Preservation Act of 1988, was reauthorized by acts of Congress in 1992, 1996, 2005, and again in October 2008...
by the
Library of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Bosley CrowtherBosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
in the
New York Times of October 8, 1943 uniformly praised the performers and production, noting that the film "tells the story of a boy and a dog, tells it with such poignance and simple beauty that only the hardest heart can fail to be moved."
Almost 50 years after the film's release,
Parade magazineParade is an American nationwide Sunday newspaper magazine, distributed in more than 500 newspapers in the United States. It was founded in 1941 and is owned by Advance Publications. The most widely read magazine in the U.S., Parade has a circulation of 32.2 million and a readership of nearly 70...
discussed its lasting cultural impact, quoting the
Saturday Evening Post which said the film launched Pal on "the most spectacular canine career in film history".
Lassie Come Home was also cited as a cultural icon in
Jane and Michael SternJane Grossman Stern and Michael Stern are American writers who specialize in books about travel, food, and popular culture...
's 1992 book,
Encyclopedia of Pop Culture.