Courage of Lassie

Last updated
Courage of Lassie
01 Courage of Lassie.jpg
Film poster
Directed by Fred M. Wilcox
Written by Lionel Houser
Produced by Robert Sisk
Starring Pal (credited as "Lassie")
Elizabeth Taylor
Frank Morgan
Harry Davenport
Selena Royle
Tom Drake
George Cleveland
Cinematography Leonard Smith
Edited by Conrad A. Nervig
Music by Scott Bradley
Bronislau Kaper
Production
company
Distributed by Loew's Inc.
Release date
  • November 8, 1946 (1946-11-08)
Running time
92 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1,530,000 [1]
Box office$4,100,000 [1]

Courage of Lassie is a 1946 American Technicolor MGM feature film featuring Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Morgan, and dog actor Pal.

Contents

Plot

A young adult collie who is a descendant of Lassie is taken in by Kathie Merrick (Elizabeth Taylor) after being separated from his mother as a pup and growing up in a forest. Merrick names him Bill, and he begins working as a sheepdog under the supervision of the shepherd Mr. MacBain (Frank Morgan). Bill is conscripted as a war dog after being hit by a truck and sent to an animal hospital. He behaves gallantly while at war during the Aleutian Islands Campaign but gains an aggressive temperament after being injured and experiencing hardship. He is returned to the mainland to recuperate, but escapes and continues to behave aggressively. Bill is almost put down, but is reunited with Merrick after it is discovered that he is a war hero.

Cast

Production

The film was shot on location at Railroad Creek by Lake Chelan near Holden, Washington. [2]

The film was copyrighted under the working title Hold High the Torch; another working title was Blue Sierra. Margaret O'Brien and Lionel Barrymore were originally slated for the starring roles, according to The Hollywood Reporter . [3] Courage of Lassie was the first top billing of Taylor's career. [4]

Music

In 2010, Film Score Monthly released the complete scores of the seven Lassie feature films released by MGM between 1943 and 1955 as well as Elmer Bernstein's score for It's a Dog's Life (1955) in the CD collection Lassie Come Home: The Canine Cinema Collection, limited to 1000 copies. Due to the era when these scores were recorded, nearly half of the music masters have been lost so the scores had to be reconstructed and restored from the best available sources, mainly the Music and Effects tracks as well as monaural ¼″ tapes. [5]

The score for Courage of Lassie was composed by Bronislau Kaper and Scott Bradley, who is well known to score music for MGM's cartoon department.

Track listing for Courage of Lassie (Disc 3)
  1. "Main Title" (David Snell, Kaper, Bradley, Robert Franklyn); "The Lake" (Bradley); "Danger in the Woods" (Bradley) - 4:11
  2. "The Lost Puppy" (Bradley) - 2:16
  3. "The Playful Puppy" (Bradley); "The Eagle" (Bradley); "The Fishing Bear" (Bradley); "Fish Jumps" (Nathaniel Shilkret) - 4:49
  4. "Girl on a Raft" (Bradley); "Fawn and the Raven" (Bradley); "The Puppy Gets Shot" (Franklyn–Bradley) - 5:36
  5. "Bill Barks" (Kaper); "Hello, Mr. MacBain" (Kaper) - 1:30
  6. "Nellie" (Kaper); "My Diary" (Kaper) - 2:33
  7. "Sheep in the Snow" (Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco); "Rescuing the Sheep" (Castelnuovo-Tedesco) - 4:46
  8. "It's Bill" (Castelnuovo-Tedesco) - 2:15
  9. "At the Veterinary's" (Kaper) - 1:04
  10. "Dog Branded" (Kaper) - 1:05
  11. "Down, Boy" (Kaper) - 1:09
  12. "Ship Kitchen" (Kaper); "The Change" (Castelnuovo-Tedesco) - 5:10
Bonus tracks
  1. "Trailer Opening" (Shilkret); "Trailer Finale" (Shilkret) - 1:08
  2. "Sunrise" (Castelnuovo-Tedesco); "Dog and Puppies" (Castelnuovo-Tedesco); "The Lost Puppy" (first version) (Castelnuovo-Tedesco); "Dog Meets Animals" (Shilkret); "Woodland Animals" (Shilkret); "Fish Jumps" (first version) (Shilkret); "The Owl and the Coyote" (Castelnuovo-Tedesco) - 16:47
  3. "A Girl, a Dog and a Raven" (Castelnuovo-Tedesco) - 3:37

Total Time: 57:83

Reception

The film was popular and earned $2,505,000 in the US and Canada and $1,595,000 elsewhere, making MGM a profit of $968,000. [1]

The New York Times praised the acting of Elizabeth Taylor "refreshingly natural as Lassie's devoted owner, and Frank Morgan, as an elderly confidante," though concluded "it is Lassie's, or Bill's, picture. And, despite some improbabilities in the plot, it is his "acting" and the polychromatic settings which are the chief delights of this offering." [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santa's Little Helper</span> Dog in The Simpsons animated TV series

Santa's Little Helper is a fictional dog in the American animated television series The Simpsons. He is the pet greyhound of the Simpson family. He was previously voiced by Frank Welker, and is currently voiced by Dan Castellaneta. The dog was introduced in the first episode of the show, the 1989 Christmas special "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", in which his owner abandons him for finishing last in a greyhound race. Homer Simpson and his son Bart, who are at the race track in hope of winning some money for Christmas presents, see this and decide to adopt the dog.

<i>Lassie Come Home</i> 1943 film by Fred M. Wilcox

Lassie Come Home is a 1943 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Technicolor feature film starring Roddy McDowall and canine actor Pal, in a story about the profound bond between Yorkshire boy Joe Carraclough and his rough collie, Lassie. The film was directed by Fred M. Wilcox from a screenplay by Hugo Butler based upon the 1940 novel Lassie Come-Home by Eric Knight. The film was the first in a series of seven MGM films starring "Lassie."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Morgan</span> American actor (1890–1949)

Francis Phillip Wuppermann, known professionally as Frank Morgan, was an American character actor. He was best known for his appearances in films starting in the silent era in 1916, and then numerous sound films throughout the 1930s and 1940s, with a career spanning 35 years mostly as a contract player at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, with his most celebrated performance playing the title role of The Wizard in the MGM movie The Wizard of Oz (1939). He was also briefly billed early in his career as Frank Wupperman and Francis Morgan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scott Bradley (composer)</span> American composer (1891–1977)

Walter Scott Bradley was an American composer, pianist, arranger, and conductor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lassie</span> Fictional female collie dog

Lassie is a fictional female Rough Collie dog and is featured in a 1938 short story by Eric Knight that was later expanded to a 1940 full-length novel, Lassie Come-Home. Knight's portrayal of Lassie bears some features in common with another fictional female collie of the same name, featured in the British writer Elizabeth Gaskell's 1859 short story "The Half Brothers". In "The Half Brothers", Lassie is loved only by her young master and guides the adults back to where two boys are lost in a snowstorm.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Collie</span> Type of herding dog

Collies form a distinctive type of herding dogs, including many related landraces and standardized breeds. The type originated in Scotland and Northern England. Collies are medium-sized, fairly lightly-built dogs, with pointed snouts. Many types have a distinctive white color over the shoulders. Collies are very active and agile, and most types of collies have a very strong herding instinct. Collie breeds have spread through many parts of the world, and have diversified into many varieties, sometimes mixed with other dog types.

<i>Thats Entertainment!</i> 1974 film by Jack Haley Jr.

That's Entertainment! is a 1974 American compilation film released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to celebrate the studio's 50th anniversary. The success of the retrospective prompted a 1976 sequel, the related 1985 film That's Dancing!, and a third installment in 1994.

Challenge of the Yukon is an American radio adventure series that began on Detroit's WXYZ and is an example of a Northern genre story. The series was first heard on January 3, 1939. The title changed from Challenge of the Yukon to Sergeant Preston of the Yukon in September 1950, and that title was retained through the end of the series and into a television adaptation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tommy Tedesco</span> American guitarist and studio musician (1930–1997)

Thomas Joseph Tedesco was an American guitarist and studio musician in Los Angeles and Hollywood. He was part of the loose collective of the area's leading session musicians later popularly known as The Wrecking Crew, who played on thousands of studio recordings in the 1960s and 1970s, including several hundred Top 40 hits.

<i>The Glass Slipper</i> (film) 1955 film by Charles Walters

The Glass Slipper (1955) is an American musical film adaptation of the fairy tale Cinderella, made by MGM, directed by Charles Walters and produced by Edwin H. Knopf from a screenplay by Helen Deutsch. The music score is by Bronislau Kaper, the cinematography by Arthur E. Arling, the art direction by Daniel B. Cathcart and Cedric Gibbons and costume design by Walter Plunkett and Helen Rose.

<i>You Lucky Dog</i> 1998 American TV series or program

You Lucky Dog is a 1998 American television fantasy comedy film directed by Paul Schneider and starring Kirk Cameron. It first aired as a Disney Channel Original Movie on June 27, 1998.

<i>Son of Lassie</i> 1945 film by S. Sylvan Simon

Son of Lassie is a 1945 American Technicolor feature film produced by MGM based on characters created by Eric Knight, and starring Peter Lawford, Donald Crisp, June Lockhart and Pal. A sequel to Lassie Come Home (1943), the film focuses on the now adult Joe Carraclough after he joins the Royal Air Force during World War II and is shot down over Nazi-occupied Norway along with a stowaway, Lassie's son "Laddie" – played by Pal. Son of Lassie was released theatrically on April 20, 1945, by Loew's.

<i>The Sun Comes Up</i> 1949 film by Richard Thorpe

The Sun Comes Up is a 1949 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Technicolor picture with Lassie. Jeanette MacDonald had been off the screen for five years until her return in Three Daring Daughters (1948), but The Sun Comes Up was to be her last. In it, she had to share the screen not with an up-and-coming younger actress but with a very popular animal star. Although her retreat from a film career can be blamed largely on an increasingly debilitating heart ailment, MacDonald continued to make concert and TV appearances after this. Her last radio performance was a broadcast version of this same story on The Screen Guild Theater in March 1950.

<i>Challenge to Lassie</i> 1950 film by Richard Thorpe

Challenge to Lassie is an American drama directed by Richard Thorpe in Technicolor and released October 31, 1949, by MGM Studios. It was the fifth feature film starring the original Lassie, a collie named Pal, and the fourth and final Lassie film starring Donald Crisp.

<i>The Painted Hills</i> 1951 film by Harold F. Kress

The Painted Hills, also known as Lassie's Adventures in the Goldrush, is a 1951 drama western film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and directed by Harold F. Kress.

<i>Hills of Home</i> (film) 1948 film by Fred M. Wilcox

Hills of Home is a 1948 American Technicolor drama film, the fourth in a series of seven MGM Lassie films. It starred Edmund Gwenn, Donald Crisp, and Tom Drake.

<i>Clifford the Big Red Dog</i> (2000 TV series) Animated television series or program

Clifford the Big Red Dog is a preschool animated educational children's television series, based upon Norman Bridwell's children's book series of the same name. Produced by Scholastic Productions, it originally aired on PBS Kids from September 4, 2000, to February 25, 2003. A UK version originally aired on BBC Two in April 2002.

<i>Its a Dogs Life</i> (film) 1955 film

It's a Dog's Life is a 1955 American comedy drama film directed by Herman Hoffman and starring Jeff Richards, Edmund Gwenn and Jarma Lewis. It is adapted from Richard Harding Davis’s 1903 novel The Bar Sinister.

<i>A Dogs Purpose</i> (film) 2017 film by Lasse Hallström

A Dog's Purpose is a 2017 American family adventure comedy-drama film directed by Lasse Hallström and written by W. Bruce Cameron, Cathryn Michon, Audrey Wells, Maya Forbes, and Wally Wolodarsky, based on the 2010 novel of the same name by W. Bruce Cameron. The film stars Britt Robertson, KJ Apa, Juliet Rylance, John Ortiz, Kirby Howell-Baptiste, Peggy Lipton, Dennis Quaid, and Josh Gad. It covers themes of loyalty, grief, dysfunctional family, over a series of reincarnations.

References

  1. 1 2 3 The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
  2. Linda Carlson (2003), Company Towns of the Pacific Northwest, ISBN   978-0-295-98332-5
  3. Maltin, Leonard. "Courage of Lassie (1946) - Notes". Turner Classic Movies.
  4. TV Guide Archived 2012-02-12 at the Wayback Machine Courage of Lassie
  5. "Lassie Come Home: The Canine Cinema Collection (1943-1955)". Film Score Monthly . Retrieved November 21, 2019.
  6. "THE SCREEN IN REVIEW; At Loew's Criterion". July 25, 1946 via NYTimes.com.