White Dog

Saturday, January 22nd, 7:30pm

White Dog

Dir. Samuel Fuller, 1982, 90 min.

Samuel Fuller’s White Dog, part exploitation flick, part uncompromising anti-racist parable, is the story of a young actress (Julie), played by “Teen Beat” generation star Kristy McNichol, who adopts a true “white dog.” In White Dog, this actual white-furred dog has been trained to attack and kill black people, forcing Julie to choose between putting the dog down or trying to “cure” the animal of its savage racism -- if that is even possible. The screenplay is loosely based on the non-fiction novel “White Dog” by Romain Gary, which is in turn based on real life experiences that Romain and his wife, the late actress Jean Seberg (Godard’s Breathless), endured when they unwittingly adopted a “white dog” in Alabama in the late 60s.  As film critic Armond White pointed out in his essay for Criterion, White Dog  was shelved almost 10 years before its U.S theatrical release because “No movie is ahead of its time, just ahead of cultural gatekeepers.”