Plot
The fifth entry in Columbia Pictures' "Rusty" series, about a boy and his dog, My Dog Rusty returns to the focus of the first three entries, tensions within the Mitchell family between young Danny (Ted Donaldson) and his father Hugh (John Litel). Danny's constant lies, each told for a good purpose but found out at the worst possible time, have already caused stress between father and son, and Hugh's campaign for mayor of Lawtonville doesn't make their relationship any less strained. In order to prove he can handle responsibility, Danny takes a job assisting the new doctor, Antonia Cordell (Mona Barrie). When several of Danny's friends fall ill, Dr. Cordell takes water samples from around town, trying to determine the source of the apparent contamination; but an accident in the lab, caused by Rusty and covered up by Danny, soon results a panic that intrudes on Danny's father's campaign for mayor. And when the truth comes out -- an event with tragic consequences for Danny's good friend Joshua Michael Tucker (Whitford Kane) -- Danny realizes that he has damaged the reputations of both Dr. Cordell and his own father, as well as doing terrible harm to his friend. He feels he has no choice but to leave home, but Rusty won't let the boy run away that easily, and follows him. ~ Bruce Eder, RoviReview
My Dog Rusty packs an awful lot of plot into 67 minutes of screen time, including father/son tribulations, a contaminated water scare, a political campaign marred by chicanery and nastiness on a level that wasn't usually talked about in 1948 (and not usually associated with small towns such as this setting), and a young female doctor whose professional reputation is compromised -- all of that, and a boy's love of his dog, and visa versa. There are sides to the story that will recall the work of Booth Tarkington, and the morality and family relations depicted, though valid for 1948, now seem a good deal more than 60 years past their shelf date. It's precisely all of the givens in the relationships and the setting that allow even lesser cinematic lights such as director Lew Landers to pack so much into so short a film, and in many ways My Dog Rusty is an almost ideal example of the postwar B-picture, warts and all. There's little subtlety, and perhaps even too much sadness laid on in the script and the direction, but the point of this picture (and the entire "Rusty" series), was to present reassuring messages to family audiences -- that problems could be worked out if people remembered values such as honesty. Whether it works as psychology is a discussion for another forum, but this movie was sufficiently entertaining and profitable in its modest way (most B-movies were limited in the profits they could show, at least until television came along as a new outlet for them, and My Dog Rusty was a staple of local TV stations until the end of the 1960s), that there were two more movies made in the series. ~ Bruce Eder, RoviCast
- Ted Donaldson - Danny Mitchell
- John Litel - Hugh Mitchell
- Ann Doran - Mrs. Mitchell
- Mona Barrie - Dr. Toni Cordell
- Whitford Kane - Mr. Tucker
Credit
George Brooks - Art Director, Lew Landers - Director, Jerome Thoms - Editor, Mischa Bakaleinikoff - Musical Direction/Supervision, Vincent J. Farrar - Cinematographer, Wallace MacDonald - Producer, Brenda Weisberg - Screenwriter, William Sackheim - Short Story Author| My Dinner with Ovitz (2002 Film), My Dinner with Abbie (1987 Film) | |
| My Dog Shep (1946 Film), My Dog Skip (2000 Film) |
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