The littlest hobo1/12/2024 ![]() ![]() The Governor tries to get his daughter to walk again by luring her with a frightening talking doll. On the lam, Hobo stumbles upon Molly (Wendy Stuart), the paraplegic daughter of Governor Malloy (Carlyle Mitchell). Yet the movie reaches its somewhat unsatisfying conclusion among the rich. The film’s first hour is a sensitive observation of the poor, from orphan boys to lost souls at a church mission where Hobo takes the lamb for rest and sustenance. The movie’s final act introduces a strange mixed message. Hobo hopes to reunite the orphan boy with his pet lamb and tracks Tommy down at the orphanage, but the boy doesn’t understand why this stray dog is bothering him. The film’s dramatic visuals are another noirish touch, as when Hobo leads the cops down a tunnel where the fugitive (and the movie not incidentally suggests a canine version of the 1953 film The Little Fugitive) and his pursuers are reflected in water. It’s a seemingly trivial subject elevated by striking black and white photography (credited to Perry Finnerman and Walter Strenge). The film’s chase scenes between man and dog take place in nearly wordless sequences that hearken back to silent film. cops who respond to the call have nothing better to do than to chase down a stray dog leading a lamb around town by a rope. It also introduces a recurring joke that the L.A. This turns the movie into a kind of film noir with a dog on the run for a crime he didn’t commit. Hobo rescues the lamb from the slaughterhouse, knocking over the butcher, who calls the police to report a mad dog on the loose. The German shepherd watches this childhood tragedy unfold with uncanny understanding. The priest in charge of the orphanage won’t let Tommy keep his pet lamb, so the boy takes it to sell to a butcher. Hobo follows young orphan Tommy (Buddy Hart, who went on to a long career as adult character actor Buddy Lee Hooker) on a tearful mission. Still, his charge for most of the film is a no doubt symbolic lamb. In L.A., there are hundreds of thousands of people he could help. In both iterations of the television show that was based on the movie, Hobo picks one or two people to help for the duration of an episode before he hits the road again. Shot on location around Los Angeles, Hobo travels in a poor black neighborhood, a junkyard stacked with abandoned train cars and a main street where a barefoot young boy desperate for change carries a shoeshine kit. This is a children’s movie that paints a bleak, unsentimental picture of poverty. Hobo, as we come to call the dog, rides the rails with no master, but when a human hobo hops off a freight car, the dog follows him through what looks like a rough part of town. Rondeau opens the film with one of the most iconic images in cinema: the locomotive. Now available from Warner Archive, The Littlest Hobo–at times noirish, at times neorealist-is an unjustly forgotten animal movie.ĭirector Charles R. You can stream full episodes of the 1979-1985 series (one episode of which starred a young pre-”SNL” Mike Meyers) on YouTube, but more elusive is the 1958 American movie that launched this underdog franchise. Lost among these faithful animals is the series of German shepherds that played Hobo, a wandering hero that starred in two different Canadian television series. From legends like Rin Tin Tin and Lassie to David DeCoteau talking animal joints, put a dog in a movie and some sucker will watch it, no matter how good it may be. Man’s best friend has been a favorite movie subject since the early years of cinema.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |