Night of Dogs

Last night was a night of dogs.  After Jeopardy, I turned on The Call of the Wild.  I can't remember if this was a move made a long time ago that I saw, or if I just read the book, but as I started to watch the movie I realized this was the recent film with Harrison Ford that I'd wanted to watch for a long time (but didn't because I'd have to pay to watch it). I was very pleased to find it on Netflix.

It's the story of a dog who is kidnapped (dog-napped?) from his home in 
Santa Clara, California and shipped to Alaska, where he is to be sold.  His  good and bad experiences are chronicled and I'm pretty sure I read the book.

The dog who plays Buck is huge. I didn't realize how big until he gets to Alaska and is partnered with a team of sled dogs. He is easily head and shoulders larger than the sled dogs.  Wikipedia tells me the dog is played by a dog who is part St. Bernard and part Scotch Shepherd.  Harrison Ford doesn't come in until over halfway through the movie, after Buck has been abused by several "owners."  He and Ford's character live together, but never really "bond," each able to go his own way without the other.  

Buck eventually meets a pack of wolves and learns how to live wild (you might say he was called by the wild...or not), while Ford's character has grown so that he's ready to leave the wilderness.  

I did enjoy the movie.  so much so that I was ready for Lassie Come Home, which played right after.  This movie is so old (1943) that it is 10 year old Elizabeth Taylor's second movie and she doesn't even get credit with the "stars" of the film, but is one of the "also rans" in the cast.  

Lassie, a beloved family dog in Yorkshire, England, is purchased by a Scottish breeder because the family has no money and can't afford to feed themselves, much less the dog.  

 Lassie is first kept n a kennel in Yorkshire, from which she escapes, always to return to her family in Yorkshire.  She is finally moved to Scotland, where she also escapes and finds her way back to Yorkshire, enduring many adventures, good and bad.  After enduring a storm, swimming a river to England, and having interactions with kind people and mean people, she finds her way back to Yorkshire and, lame and ragged, is waiting at the school for her boy when he comes out.  Lassie has come home and Dad is hired by the breeder to take care of his dogs, so they will never be apart again.

Lassie was played by a male dog named Pal and I met Pal at a dog show in San Francisco.  Everyone was in the arena and I went to the bathroom and in the stairwell, ran into Pal and his handler.  I should put  Pal on my list of famous people I have met!

It was a fun night.  I do love animal stories.  While these two were playing, I was recording Born Free, which I haven't watched yet.

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Crime and Punishment

 I'm going to have to stop watching crime shows in TV.  Last night I dreamed that a friend of ours had been raped.  She was a woman, but they cast the wrong actor because it was a man.  I was comforting her and trying to convince her to go to a support house.

Then I woke up and was awake for a couple of hours.  When I went back to sleep, I dreamed I was rescuing a group of kids who had been kidnapped.  One of them was a little girl I had seen on the Food Network Kids Championship.  Very young, very cute, blonde, frilly dress.  She looked at her fit bit  (which was very fancy) and said she had to be home because she needed to help her father in his meat business.  A little comedy in my dreams, I said "Really?  THAT's why you want to get home?"

It was a quiet weekend.  Ned didn't record his radio show until Sunday because his co-anchor couldn't get in to the garage with the drying driveway.  Sunday, Turner Classic Movies was showing academy award winning movies.  I first watched An Affair to Remember, one of my favorite movies.

Then I watched  Dr. Zivago, which I had never seen before, other than snippets.  It was quite different from what I thought it would be.  Then we watched Gone with the Wind, and then Casablanca.  I am feeling very steeped in classic films!  I don't think Walt has sat and watched that much television in years (he just watched GWTW and Casablanca)

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