Lassie (1994 film)

Last updated
Lassie
Lassie 1994 movie poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Daniel Petrie
Written by Eric Knight
Matthew Jacobs
Gary Ross
Elizabeth Anderson
Produced by Lorne Michaels
Starring
CinematographyKenneth MacMillan
Edited bySteve Mirkovich
Music by Basil Poledouris
Production
company
Distributed by Paramount Pictures [1]
Release date
  • July 22, 1994 (1994-07-22)
Running time
94 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Box office$9,979,683 [2]

Lassie, or Lassie: Best Friends are Forever, [3] is a 1994 American adventure family film directed by Daniel Petrie, starring Tom Guiry, Helen Slater, Jon Tenney, Frederic Forrest, Richard Farnsworth, Michelle Williams, and featuring the fictional collie Lassie.

Contents

Plot

The Turner family moves from Baltimore, Maryland, to the small town of Franklin Falls in Tazewell County, Virginia, hoping to start a new life. The move creates problems for everyone, especially 13-year-old Matt, who feels lost and alone in his new surroundings, and still has not come to terms with his father Steve's remarriage to Laura after his mother's death. But with the help of a stray Collie dog named Lassie that the family takes in, Matt learns to adjust to his surroundings and his family's situation. After Lassie saves Matt's life from an aggressive gray wolf one night, the two form a bond.

However, as his father’s planned job falls through, Matt, with help from his grandfather, Len Collins, helps convince the family to start a sheep farm, which had been his mother's dream. While the Turners get to work, a ruthless neighbor and wealthy sheep farmer, Sam Garland, will stop at nothing to prevent them from succeeding, because it means that they will be occupying some grazing land that he's used in the past. In addition, Sam has two sons, Josh and Jim who attend school with Matt. Both boys dislike Matt, but Josh's hatred mainly stems from jealousy because a fellow student, April Porter, whom Josh likes, is more interested in Matt.

Eventually Sam, with the help of his sons and henchmen, steals the Turners’ new herd of sheep, and kidnaps Lassie. However, she manages to escape, and she and Matt get their sheep back. However Josh and Jim catch up to them, and in the ensuing scuffle Josh finds himself struggling in a raging river, heading for massive rapids and a waterfall. Matt manages to rescue him, but is unable to save himself. Lassie then rescues Matt, but ends up going over the waterfall herself, to Matt's horror. Sam, after learning that Matt had saved Josh's life, apologizes to the Turners for his actions and for the loss of Lassie. The Turners hold a memorial for Lassie at a nearby tree where Matt's mother had carved her initials years before, and Matt carves Lassie's name above his mother's initials. However, Lassie manages to survive the waterfall, and although injured, she returns home shortly afterwards and is reunited with Matt at his school.

Cast

Filming locations

Lassie was primarily filmed in New York, Naro. It was also filmed at Boomer Island Thompson Valley, VA.

Reception

Lassie was released to positive reviews.

Peter Rainer of the Los Angeles Times , stated that "one of the drawbacks of the film’s syrupy approach—at least from a family-entertainment point of view—is that you keep waiting for danger and bad guys to liven things up. And, sure enough, the presence of Frederic Forrest as Sam Garland, the biggest and baddest sheep farmer in the state, turns out to be a boon. Perpetually scowling and sunglass-clad, Sam is a rude dude; he looks over his flock of sheep and sees only lamb chops on the hoof. His two young sons (Charlie Hofheimer and Clayton Barclay Jones) are like a pair of range-riding homunculi. You keep expecting the Garlands to get seriously nutty and take over the picture—maybe try to mate Lassie with a lamb, or spike the ol’ swimmin’ hole, or force-feed Matt’s kindly granddad (Richard Farnsworth) Puppy Chow. The producer of 'Lassie,' after all, is Lorne Michaels, executive producer of 'Saturday Night Live.' But even the Garlands are ultimately redeemed by the love of a dog. Their bark is worse than their bite. (On the other hand, Lassie’s bite is worse than her bark. Go figure.)" [4]

Janet Maslin of The New York Times called Lassie "a stubbornly sweet, picturesque children's film" which "is inadvertently revealing about the people for whom it was ostensibly made. The mood is nostalgic but knowing; after all, no dog story with a soundtrack featuring the Beatles, Bob Dylan and the Allman Brothers can be considered precisely quaint. This film (from the producers of 'Coneheads') even presumes a degree of viewer cynicism about Lassie lore. Early in the story, a little girl named Jennifer Turner (Brittany Boyd) watches "Lassie" on television while her older, hipper brother Matt (Thomas Guiry) sneers. Matt doesn't believe in Santa Claus, and he doesn't think a 50's canine rerun can beat MTV." Maslin added:

"Lassie," directed in prettily innocuous fashion by Daniel Petrie, is too intent on a vague feel-good spirit to provide real conflict. The film's villains, a rich sheep-ranching family headed by Sam Garland (Frederic Forrest), are more obnoxious than evil. Chewing tobacco, toting guns and disparaging animals (sheep are "just wool and good eatin'") are their principal sins. For today's viewers, maybe that's supposed to be wickedness enough. Lassie, a live-action, non-animatronic, eighth-generation descendant of the original star, is exactly what might be expected: a dog who appears to be responding to the orders of an off-screen trainer. With a more limited range of stunts and expressions than past canine actors have had, this Lassie depends on the camera, the adoring actors and the swelling soundtrack to turn her into a love object. Of course, she gets some help from our memories. [5]

Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly gave the film an A− grade and said that the film was "a remarkably clean, bracing production that does a difficult thing exceptionally well, depicting believably modern young people in a believably old-fashioned plot." [6]

As of July 2021, the film holds a "fresh" rating of 88% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 15 reviews. [7]

Box office

The movie debuted at No. 9 at the US box office. [8] [9]

Related Research Articles

<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">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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rudd Weatherwax</span> American actor (1907–1985)

Ruddell Bird "Rudd" Weatherwax was an American actor, animal trainer, and breeder. He and his brother Frank are best remembered for training dogs for motion pictures and television. Their collie, Pal, became the original Lassie, handled by Rudd for the 1943 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film Lassie Come Home. He also handled the dogs for the Lassie television series which ran from 1954 to 1974, and trained Spike for the 1957 feature film Old Yeller. After his death, his son, Robert, took over the training of the animals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pal (dog)</span> Rough Collie dog

Pal was a male Rough Collie performer and the first in a line of such dogs to portray the fictional female collie Lassie in film, on radio, and on television. In 1992, The Saturday Evening Post said Pal had "the most spectacular canine career in film history".

<i>The New Lassie</i> American TV series or program

The New Lassie is an American family drama series which aired in first-run syndication from September 8, 1989 to February 15, 1992. The series stars Will Estes as Will McCullough, Lassie's new master. Real life husband and wife Christopher and Dee Wallace-Stone co-starred as Will's parents.

<i>Lassie</i> (1954 TV series) 1954 TV series

Lassie is an American television series that follows the adventures of a female Rough Collie dog named Lassie and her companions, both human and animal. The show was the creation of producer Robert Maxwell and animal trainer Rudd Weatherwax and was televised from September 12, 1954, to March 25, 1973. The eighth longest-running scripted American primetime television series. The show ran for 17 seasons on CBS before entering first-run syndication for its final two seasons. Initially filmed in black and white, the show transitioned to color in 1965.

Stuart Michael Sharrett is an American actor. Best known for his role in the 1978 family movie The Magic of Lassie with James Stewart, Sharrett additionally co-starred in the 1985 action film Savage Dawn and in the 1986 Wes Craven horror film Deadly Friend, for which he received a Young Artist Award nomination as the "Best Young Actor in a Horror Motion Picture".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Canine Mutiny</span> 20th episode of the 8th season of The Simpsons

"The Canine Mutiny" is the twentieth episode of the eighth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on April 13, 1997. It was written by Ron Hauge and directed by Dominic Polcino. Bart fraudulently applies for a credit card and uses it to buy an expensive trained dog called Laddie. It guest stars voice actor Frank Welker as Laddie, a parody of Lassie. The episode's title references the novel The Caine Mutiny.

Eric Mowbray Knight was an English novelist and screenwriter, who is mainly known for his 1940 novel Lassie Come-Home, which introduced the fictional collie Lassie. He took American citizenship in 1942 shortly before his death.

<i>The Shaggy Dog</i> (2006 film) 2006 film by Brian Robbins

The Shaggy Dog is a 2006 American science fantasy family comedy film directed by Brian Robbins and written by The Wibberleys, Geoff Rodkey, Jack Amiel, and Michael Begler. It is the fifth overall installment of the titular franchise, and is a reboot of the 1959 film of the same name and its 1976 sequel The Shaggy D.A., both of which were loosely based on the 1923 novel The Hound of Florence by Felix Salten. The original film had a character named Wilby Daniels transforming into an Old English Sheepdog after putting on a magic ring, whereas the remake presents a character named Dave Douglas transforming into a Bearded Collie after getting bitten by a sacred dog. It stars Tim Allen, Robert Downey Jr., Kristin Davis, Danny Glover, Spencer Breslin and Philip Baker Hall.

<i>Lassie</i> (2005 film) 2005 film by Charles Sturridge

Lassie is a 2005 adventure comedy-drama film based on Eric Knight's 1940 novel Lassie Come-Home about the profound bond between Joe Carraclough and his rough collie, Lassie. The film was directed, written, and co-produced by Charles Sturridge and is a production of Samuel Goldwyn Films. The film stars Jonathan Mason and was distributed by Roadside Attractions and released in the UK on 16 December 2005. Filming took place in Scotland, Ireland and the Isle of Man. The supporting cast features Peter O'Toole, Samantha Morton, Peter Dinklage, Edward Fox, and John Lynch. The film was generally reviewed positively by critics, but performed poorly at the box office.

<i>Lassies Rescue Rangers</i> American TV series or program

Lassie's Rescue Rangers is an animated television series produced by Filmation and featuring Lassie, running from 1972 to 1973. The hour-long pilot, Lassie and the Spirit of Thunder Mountain, was part of The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie.

<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>Lassie</i> (1997 TV series) Canadian television series

Lassie is a Canadian television series which aired from 1997 to 1999 on YTV in Canada and Sunday nights on the Animal Planet network in the United States, as a modified remake of the original Lassie series (1954–1973) about a boy and his faithful dog. As with previous Lassie TV versions and several films dating back to the original Lassie Come Home film of 1943, the star was Lassie, a trained Rough Collie.

<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>Courage of Lassie</i> 1946 film by Fred M. Wilcox

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

References

  1. "SUNDAY, APRIL 24, 1994; Who Owns Lassie?". The New York Times . Retrieved 2012-06-07.
  2. Lassie at Box Office Mojo
  3. "Lassie: Best Friends Are Forever". Amazon.
  4. "MOVIE REVIEW : 'Lassie' Wags Predictability by Its Tale". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 2012-06-07.
  5. "FILM REVIEW; Lassie, With No Computer Trickery". The New York Times . Retrieved 2012-06-07.
  6. "Lassie". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on October 7, 2008. Retrieved 2012-06-07.
  7. Lassie (1994) , retrieved 2021-07-06
  8. "It's an Ace for 'Mask' at Box Office : Movies: New Line Cinema's entree into the majors is a hit on its opening weekend". The Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 2011-01-12.
  9. "Weekend Box Office : Reaching Higher Highs in Ticket Sales". The Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 2011-01-12.