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My Dog Skip
USA 1999
Reviewed by Amanda Lipman
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Yazoo, Mississippi, 1940. Willie is a shy only child, who is bullied by his peers. His closest friend, local sporting hero Dink, sets off to fight in World War II. On Willie's ninth birthday, his mother gives him a puppy, which he names Skipper. With his dog at his side, Willie makes friends with a little girl, Rivers.
Forced by his former bullies, whom he has befriended, to spend a night in the cemetery, Willie chances on a couple of bootleggers who threaten to kill Skip if the boy gives them away. Dink returns home from the war, a reclusive drunk. Playing baseball, Willie is on bad form. When Skip leaps on to the field, Willie hits him. Skip runs off; Willie spends the rest of the day looking for him. Skip hides in the cemetery where he breaks all the bootleggers' bottles. One of them attacks him with a spade, just as Willie arrives with Dink who knocks the bootlegger out. Skip recovers. As an adult, Willie recalls how Skip and he remain inseparable until he left for university at Oxford. There, Willie gets a letter from his parents saying Skip has died.
Review
Based on Willie Morris' memoir of growing up in the 40s, My Dog Skip is a glowing slice of nostalgia, all sleek cars, corner drugstores and crisp shirts. Here everyone, from the poor white trash to the segregated black families, gleams with an unassailable wholesomeness. If director Jay Russell raises prickly issues, he soon smooths them over to concentrate on the main action, the relationship between young Willie and his dog Skip. So while we see white folk going to the cinema through one door and black folk through another and hear Willie's white friends jeer when he becomes a keen supporter of Waldo Grace, a local black sports hero, it's all rather uncontroversial. Everything is seen through Willie's innocent eyes, without concession to the sensibilities and expectations of a critical modern, adult audience.
In this safe American idyll, Adolf Hitler is no more than a joke, a name at which Willie trains Skip to growl. Admittedly, Willie's world becomes a little more complicated when his friend Dink returns from the war an alcoholic wreck, only to be lambasted by the townspeople as a coward. There are hints of Boo Radley, the shy but kindly figure in To Kill a Mockingbird, in this reclusive, evasive war veteran, whom nobody except a child understands, and who is forced, thanks to the determined efforts of this child, to growl finally that it wasn't the dying he was afraid of during the war but the killing. But the film's focus on the relationship between the boy and his dog keeps such darker moments to the background. This central storyline has its share of strong scenes, particularly those in which Willie visibly relaxes, loses his habitual scowl and sheds his little old man cares - largely because of the cute antics of the effervescent Jack Russell playing Skip, who responds to all Willie's commands eagerly but wrongly.
Kevin Bacon - who featured in Russell's 1988 film End of the Line - plays Willie's sensitive, rather depressed father who lost a leg in the Spanish civil war and can't help being over-protective of his son. He and Diane Lane, as Willie's feisty but tender mother, do their best with the little they are given. But it's hard to get a sense of how they fit into Willie's world, perhaps because the boy is so focused on his dog. In one scene, as father and son walk through the countryside, Willie asks his dad about his losing a leg. But the moment of intimacy is lost; instead the scene centres on Willie's first encounter with death as a deer is shot. The rite of passage is particularly poignant for showing how Willie's father can't protect him from bad things in life. But the strength of this scene also owes a lot to the fact that in My Dog Skip such moments are rare.
Credits
- Director
- Jay Russell
- Producers
- Mark Johnson
- John Lee Hancock
- Broderick Johnson
- Andrew A. Kosove
- Screenplay
- Gail Gilchriest
- Based on the book by
- Willie Morris
- Director of Photography
- James L. Carter
- Editors
- Harvey Rosenstock
- Gary Winter
- Production Designer
- David J. Bomba
- Music
- William Ross
- ©MDS Productions, LLC
- Production Companies
- Alcon Entertainment presents a Mark Johnson/John Lee Hancock production
- Executive Producers
- Jay Russell
- Marty Ewing
- Production Executive
- Kira Davis
- Production Supervisor
- Sheridan Thayer
- Production Controller
- Christi Moore-Brantley
- Production Co-ordinator
- Jennifer Corey
- Unit Production Manager
- Marty Ewing
- Location Manager
- Robin Robertson
- Location Consultant
- Anna Mewbourne-Elias
- Post-production Supervisor
- Brad Arensman
- Assistant Directors
- Chris Stoia
- Pamela Cederquist
- LA Unit:
- Joan Cunningham
- Script Supervisor
- Judi Townsend
- Casting
- Mindy Marin
- Marshall Peck
- Associate:
- Jennifer Madeloff
- Additional:
- Lou DiGiaimo
- Stephanie Corsilini
- Director of Photography
- Additional Photography:
- Cary Cook
- Camera Operators
- Marty Layton
- Sal Camacho
- Steadicam Operator
- Bill Brummond
- Projection Effects
- Bill Hansard
- Special Effects
- Stephen Bourgeois
- Matthew Zeringue
- Set Decorators
- Tracey A. Doyle
- LA Unit:
- Lee Cunningham
- Draftsperson
- Rob Simons
- Costume Designer
- Edi Giguére
- Costume Supervisor
- Lovelynn Vanderhorst
- Head Make-up Artist
- Pamela Roth
- L.A. Unit Make-up
- Bridget Bergman
- Head Hairstylist
- K.G. Ramsey
- Period Hair Consultant
- Bryan Ewing
- Titles/Opticals
- Pacific Title Research
- Additional Music
- Van Dyke Parks
- Orchestrator/Conductor
- William Ross
- Music Supervisor
- Deva Anderson
- Music Co-ordinator
- Delphine Robertson
- Music Editors
- Jim Harrison
- Sherry Whitfield
- Recording/Mixing Engineer
- Robert Fernandez
- Music Consultant
- Scott Stambler
- Music Scoring Consultant
- Matthew Della Polla
- Soundtrack
- "Tuxedo Junction" - Gene Krupa and his Orchestra; "There'll Be a Hot Time in the Town of Berlin" - The Andrews Sisters; "Lullaby of Broadway" - Richard Himber & His Orchestra; "I'm Beginning to See the Light" - Harry James; "Ration Blues" - Louis Jordan; "Chasing Shadows" - Louis Prima; "Old Yazoo" - The Boswell Sisters; "Moonlight Promenade; "Starlight Serenade"; "The Round Up Prelude"; "Hop-Along"; "200 Bright"; "Washington in the New"
- Sound Design
- Stephen Hunter Flick
- Sound Mixer
- Steve C. Aaron
- Recordist
- Ryan Murphy
- L.A. Unit Sound Mixer
- Sunny Meyer
- Supervising Re-recording Mixer
- Jeffrey Perkins
- Re-recording Mixer
- Samuel Lehmer
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Charles Maynes
- Dialogue Editors
- David Bach
- David V. Butler
- Alexandra Gonzales
- Tim Rakoczy
- Effects Editor
- William Jacobs
- Loop Group
- L.A. MadDogs
- ADR
- Recordist:
- Jeffrey Barnett
- Mixer:
- Bruce Bell
- Supervising Editor:
- Stewart Nelson
- Foley
- Recordist:
- Jeffrey Barnett
- Mixer:
- Bruce Bell
- Editors:
- Dale Brown
- Dana Gustafson
- Edward Steidele
- Alexander Schwartz
- Consultants
- Ray Rosamond
- Will Cauthen
- Jonathon Dickson
- Drew Malone
- Chris Peusch
- Kenner Purvis
- David Rings
- Kris Rosamond
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Jeff Habberstad
- Animal Trainers
- Mathilde De Cagny
- William S. Grisco
- Deer Wranglers
- Barbara Blough
- John Blough
- Cast
- Frankie Muniz
- Willie Morris
- Diane Lane
- Ellen Morris
- Luke Wilson
- Dink Jenkins
- Kevin Bacon
- Jack Morris
- Mark Beech
- army buddy
- Susan Carol Davis
- Mrs Jenkins
- David Pickens
- Mr Jenkins
- Bradley Coryell
- Big Boy Wilkinson
- Daylan Honeycutt
- Henjie Henick
- Cody Linley
- Spit McGee
- Lucile Doan Ewing
- Aunt Maggie
- Polly Craig
- Grandmother Mamie
- John Stiritz
- Grandfather Percy
- Enzo
- Moose
- Skip
- Caitlin Wachs
- Rivers Applewhite
- Elizabeth Rice
- Rivers' friend
- Nate Bynum
- man on street
- Stacie Doublin
- woman on street
- Bill Butler
- Barney
- Winston Groom
- Mr Goodloe
- Katherine Shoulders
- Mrs Applewhite
- Nathaniel Lee
- Sammy
- Joann Blankenship
- Miss Abbott
- Hunter Hays
- accordion boy
- Cannon Smith
- bible boy
- Courtney Brown
- snake girl
- Brian Witt
- armpit boy
- Clint Howard
- Millard
- Peter Crombie
- Junior Smalls
- Jerome Jerald
- Waldo Grace
- Jordan Williams
- Lt Hartman
- John Sullivan
- Stuart Greenwell
- hunters
- Harry Hood
- baseball coach
- Gordon Swaim
- umpire
- Owen Boutwell
- Chaon Cross
- spectators
- Jim Fraiser
- veterinarian
- Graham Gordy
- pump jockey
- Michael Berkshire
- older Willie
- Wayne Wimberly
- older Spit
- Josh Yates
- older Henjie
- James Thweat
- older Big Boy
- Harry Connick Jr
- narrator
- Certificate
- U
- Distributor
- Warner Bros Distributors (UK)
- 8,564 feet
- 95 minutes 9 seconds
- Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS
- In Colour