The third movie in the Lassie series, this one confusingly stars a male dog named Pal playing a female dog named Lassie playing a male dog named Bill, who is then, in the course of the film re-named Duke. Got that? I guess it's not that important. Bill (terrible name for a dog) is born on an island. His mother's master rescues the mother and the rest of the litter, but doesn't see Bill, who then grows up in the wild. The wild, which is populated by a trained bear and some other animals. After growing up to adulthood, Bill is surprisingly non-feral and is discovered by a 14 year-old Elizabeth Taylor. Right after Taylor finds him, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer shoots him with bird shot. Taylor cares for him until he's well again, with the help of Frank Morgan. Then Bill is hit by an Army truck (the poor damn dog can't get a break). After he regains his strength again, the Army guys take him to Japan (or maybe Europe), where they use him as, I don't know, a decoy to draw enemy fire. He finally gets back to America and finds his way back to Elizabeth Taylor, but not before he kills some farm chickens. He's put on trial (!) and gets the death penalty. Frank Morgan saves him after discovering he was an Army dog and understanding he has post-traumatic stress syndrome. Anyway, this is obviously mind-numbingly stupid, and it provides a few good laughs that way in its run. It's filmed in a pretty Technicolor. But it's not worth seeing, obviously. As, I suppose, I watched this in honor of Taylor, I should say a brief word about her. She's a sweet kid, and, like in National Velvet, a pretty good actress already. The film is so silly, though, and she's not really in it that much that she can hardly save it.
Review of Courage of Lassie
