In England on the eve of World War II, an impoverished Yorkshire family must sell young Joe's (Jonathan Mason) beloved dog Lassie to the Duke (Peter O'Toole). Lassie escapes the Duke's estate over and over again to return to her beloved Joe, who must eventually lie to the dog and tell her he no longer loves her so that she will stop escaping. The Duke then takes her up to Scotland, but Lassie escapes the Duke's cruel kennel-man and begins the long trek back to Yorkshire, and to Joe. Along the way, she encounters everything from the Loch Ness monster to a traveling entertainer (Peter Dinklage). Will Lassie make it home in time for Christmas?
Kids and adults alike will have a good Christmas cry with this moving and ultimately joyous boy-and-his-dog tale. The thought of another Lassie adventure may have you cringing, but this is the kind of literate, intelligent kids' movie -- like The Black Stallion and The Secret Garden (1993) -- that come along all too rarely. Charles Sturridge (the original Brideshead Revisited) wrote a powerful adaptation of the original Lassie novel and then populated his cast with a mix of veteran U.K. actors (O'Toole, Samantha Morton, John Lynch, Kelly Macdonald) and talented newcomers (Mason, as well as Hester Odgers in the role of the Duke's granddaughter). The result is a stirring adventure that's bound to become a holiday classic in dog-loving households everywhere.
Fun Facts:
· This adaptation returned Lassie to her roots -- the 1940 novel Lassie Come Home, which began as a series of stories in the Saturday Evening Post in 1938. When Sturridge was hired to write the film, he had no idea there ever was a book or that it was originally a British story, his knowledge of Lassie having been limited to the American TV series of the 1950s.
· Three dogs were used during filming -- what the animal coordinator called "the stunt dog, the running dog, and the picture dog" -- and vegetable dyes were used to make the three look identical. The "picture dog" was a descendant of "Pal," the legendary dog who originally played Lassie in 1943's Lassie Come Home, starring Elizabeth Taylor.
Check back for more of Movieline's 12 Films of Christmas throughout the rest of this week.