Institute History
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From “The White Dog Talks” by Samuel Fuller, Fuller “interviewed” the title actor of the movie in VARIETY, 1981
DOG: Sure it’s a delicate subject, one never make before. Sure it’s about a dog sane one minute, insane the next. But to tell it with action, suspense, romance, humor, heart and hate and love, hell, that’s emotional . . . an emotional thriller . . . And it has something to say, to think about, to rage. Above all, to feel.
SF: Will blacks like the movie?
DOG: Yes.
SF: And bigots?
DOG: They’ll denounce it.
SF: Why?
DOG: Because you show them naked for what they are. They’ll call it unAmerican, socialistic, communistic, liberal crap—anything to muzzle an outcry on film against a disease created by man. I’ve never met an animal bigot. Never. Can you imagine horses lynching a zebra because of its stripes? Man is capable of hatred. Animals are not . . .
SF: Romain Gary’s story was about a dog that one day appeared at Gary’s door. Gary took him in, grew fond of him, discovered to his horror that it was a racist dog, took him to a white man to be reconditioned, but a black worker got hold of the animal and retrained him to attack whites—making it a black dog. It’s horrible enough that a white racist make a dog into a bigot, but having a black retrain it to attack whites compounds that horror. To me, such a story is a racist story against blacks and I’d never make that kind of film. (In the film, the Black scientist played by Paul Winfield tries to cure the dog.)
DOG: I see . . .now I understand you more than before. You saw a chance to rip off the KKK skin and expose to what inhuman depths a racist sinks when he creates a white dog.
SF: Right. In Frankenstein, the monster’s crimes were great, but the greater crime was Dr. Frankenstein for having created the monster.