Bob Pr. I have no problem with the anti-racist bias here. I DO have MAJOR problems with the techniques used in re-training the dog out of his racial bias. Possibly the author of the original story (and the film people) consulted only local dog trainers? My background (although a professional PhD clinical psychologist, now retired) includes 7 years study on my PhD in learning theory which also included teaching many fellow PhD candidates.This film's authors, directors, & screen writers obviously did not consult with any scientific university experts on the learning and retraining principles involved. As is, it makes an emotionally compelling story and worthwhile story but a flawed one. Why have the retrainer be one single black man -- why not have many blacks, of many ages and both genders? That's what any adequate retraining regime would have done. And why use a full size burger as a reward? In learning (and retraining) positive results do NOT depend on the size of the reward but upon its frequency of occurrence and immediacy to the desired response and desirability. While these are critical, important points in any effective retraining procedure, they are not those most people would be aware of.

v_haritha_in How to take a sensitive issue that has never been put in film before and turn it into an emotionless drab of a movie? Just watch White Dog.Julie (Kristy McNichols)finds a lost white German Shepard and when no one turns up to claim him, she decides to adopt him. She soon finds out that it had been trained by its previous owner to attack black people. Determined to "cure" him, she takes him to animal trainers, Carruthers and Keys. The best thing about the movie is easily the titular white dog. He is fierce and definitely scary when he bares his large teeth. And the audience do get invested in him as the movie proceeds. But the sad thing is none of the characters seem to be. Most people keep advising Julie to put him down without so much as a flinch. Keys only looks at him as a symbol of racism rather than a living being. He seems to believe that "curing" this dog means taking away a weapon from white racists. He is, as far as the dog is concerned, no different from the previous owner; both of them are using him as tool. Julie looks like the Kristen Stewart of the 80's. In one scene she is defending the dog, in the next she is shouting at Keys to shoot him and then again she is hugging him, all with a poker face. And neither does the script give her any chance to show the transition between her emotional states.I read that the movie makers tried to promote it as a horror film about a monster dog. If they wanted to do so, it had to be a completely different story movie. All elements of racism should be kept out and the audience should not sympathize with the killer dog. Instead what we get is a film that has a few horror-like elements. People speak in short obtuse sentences like in horror movies, but here it is just lame. There are numerous irritating slow motions shots. Ennio Moricone was probably told to write a score for a thriller movie. It is grating on a story about likable dog helplessly brainwashed to do bad things. The editing is poorly done. A lot of time is wasted on pointless scenes like when a policeman comes to the training center asking for directions and when Julie meets the previous owner of the dog. It could have been instead utilized to develop Julie's character a little better.The dog is just that, a dog. The audience are concerned about him as a being. Turing him into a symbol of something larger, in this case racism, is not going to work because nobody looks at an animal and sees a symbol.

filmdebateblog Join the debate at filmdebate.wordpress.com THE PROFESSIONAL: I hadn't heard of this movie before I was browsing the Criterion Collection collection at my local independent video store. With such great cover art and a curious synopsis, I couldn't NOT rent it. "Kristy McNichol stars as a young actress who adopts a lost German shepherd, only to discover through a series of horrifying incidents that the dog has been trained to attack black people, and Paul Winfield plays the animal trainer who tries to cure him." THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE: It felt like a movie of the week, in the most non-pejorative way possible. The soundtrack by Ennio Morricone was my favorite aspect of the movie.THE PROFESSIONAL: I came away much more impressed. I felt it was Jaws with a dog instead of a shark and The Exorcist with racism instead of some evil spirit. Now there were some definite flaws, but you'd have to say it easily tops Cujo.THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE: There needs to be a term like the "uncanny valley" for movies from the 80s and early 90s. It's recent enough that it feels current and identifiable, but old enough to feel cheesy and dated. Whereas movies much older, from the 40s and 50s for example, are so old that they are a completely separate era, and thus it's easier to accept that their styles were just the way they did things back then. The idea and execution were competent, but it was hard to take seriously. I will say it's the best animal acting/directing I've seen this side of "Homeward Bound".THE PROFESSIONAL: Somebody get that dog an Oscar! Postdogously. Yes, there is that 'gee whiz' acting quality of some of the characters / actors – but that is another similarity I see with The Exorcist. The story starts off quietly enough, with some naive individuals who become unknowingly entangled with a very dangerous situation, the true nature of which they become slowly aware of as the situation becomes increasingly more... CONTINUED AT FILMDEBATE.WORDPRESS.COM

Lucero22290 Samuel Fuller directs this film to reflect racism through a dog's perspective. Not at all is the film racist, on the contrary Fuller's main objective is to communicate a point across during that era. I think that this film portrays what was and is still occurring. The movie is not about "ohh look how cute is that dog". it's about a dog that has been mislead and taught to do the wrong thing. The white dog has been taught to attack black people. As a puppy the dog learned that because he had a bad experience with black person every other black person was the same. However, he was just poisoned by the very owner that had a hate for black people. Julie Sawyer one of the main actresses confronts the dog's ex- owner and speaks out her mind about how he had done such a hard to the dog. Racist people that spoil the rest of the bunch should be put a stop to because categorizing people according to their skin color isn't fair. This movie raises suspense but at times the music is too over the top, overall this film contains a greater meaning.