Rusty, The Dog

jdb1

Post by jdb1 »

I saw on the first half or so of the last of the Rusty the Dog series, "Rusty's Birthday."

I wasn't too hopeful, when I saw the credits and read the name of Brenda Weissberg as the screen writer. She was responsible for those last two substandard offerings that were shown on TCM. However, this one wasn't too bad, and it seems to have laid the groundwork for a continuation of the series, since Ted Donaldson was getting too old to be Rusty's boy any more.

Rusty runs after a prowler, finds a lost purse at a gas station, runs miles after the owner of the purse, who is with her husband in a trailer, and is taken by the couple and renamed "Jackpot." First chance he gets, Rusty runs away and gets on the road back home to Lawtonville, IL. He hurts his paw, and limps dramatically for miles. He gets stuck in some discarded chicken wire, and is rescued by a little boy who looks like a junior version of Rusty's master, Danny. The boy's father is a migrant worker, who is heading, in his beat-up jalopy to find work. Guess where he goes, with Rusty in tow. Right -- good old Lawtonville, IL. The little boy, his older brother and the father, putting along in that old car, looked a lot like the Clampetts heading for the Hills of Beverly.

Danny and his pals encounter Rusty and the new boy on the street, and Danny angrily takes Rusty home. After that, I was in and out of the room, and didn't bother to record the movie. Apparently, the itinerant father, played by Ray Teal of "Bonanza," went to the local employment agency, run by the spinster Miss Simmons. At the very end of the movie, which I caught, it appeared that Pappy and Miss Simmons were a couple, and Rusty had yet another son, which was given to the cute little boy. Where that puppy came from I can't say. Our Rusty sure does get around.

In any event, the dialog was a lot snappier than it was in the last film, and the situations weren't quite so groan-inducing. Danny is being sent away to a military prep school. He apparently wants to go, even though it means leaving Rusty behind. Ted Donaldson looked tall and mature and, I thought, very uncomfortable throughout the film. He also had a really bad haircut.

Early in the movie, when Rusty is investigating noise he heard in the yard and sees the prowler, there's shot of the dog in the middle of the yard barking and watching the prowler jump a fence and run away. The prowler is not in the shot, but you can clearly (but briefly) see a moving shadow on the ground in front of the dog which I assume was the arm of his trainer. Rusty scales the fence and chases the wrongdoer. Attaboy!

And thus ends the saga of Rusty. About half and half, I'd say: some awful ones, and some pretty good ones.
Post Reply