Lassie Come Home (1943)

Absolutely Fantastic

A Masterpiece!

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

A wonderful story about a boy and his dog. Possibly the first movie of that type too.Simple yet heart-warming plot, great cinematography and scenery and some great performances.Movie features some stars in the making. Roddy McDowall is hardly recognisable at 14 years old, and puts in a solid performance as the boy. Elizabeth Taylor was only 10/11, and acting in her second movie, when she appeared in this. Good supporting cast too.And let's not forget the performance of the dog who plays Lassie - great work from her.Great, classic, movie and suitable for all ages.

Can I be honest? I wasn't expecting to love this film, I thought it would be childish and predictable. How wrong I was, Lassie Come Home is delightful! Sweet, moving and exciting, I absolutely loved the film. The cinematography is beautiful, and the scenery is lush and like looking at a watercolour painting. The music is also gorgeous, memorable and lyrical with amazing orchestration. The direction, script and story are also first rate, the script being intelligent, the direction assured and the story well paced. Also excellent was the acting, Roddy McDowall and Elizabeth Taylor are appealing as the children, Nigel Bruce gives a gruff, aggressive yet sympathetic performance with some Dr Watson-like facial expressions and Edmund Gwenn who I know best from the original Miracle on 34th Street is outstanding as Rowlie. What made the film though was Lassie, an astonishing canine performance from Pal, who acts so convincingly and moves as swiftly as the wind. Also Lassie's pining were so achingly sad, you couldn't help feel for the poor dog, especially in the very poignant ending. And yes, I cried when Toots died. Overall, I loved Lassie Come Home, though I do think it is deserving of a restoration. 10/10 Bethany Cox

After AOL pulled my (and a bajillion others) website on hometown-aol, I have finally re-created another in honor of my grandfather, Maj. Eric M. Knight. Please visit this informative web site: http://www.lassiecomehome.info This has been an exciting year for me as I traveled to Suriname just one year ago and trekked through the swamps to the exact crash site. I have posted pictures you may like to see. I was invited by a well-known Surinamese film maker who is making a documentary on Suriname in World War Two. A Dutch colony at the time of the plane crash in which my grandfather's life was tragically cut short in 1943, the people of Dutch Guiana naturally supported the Allies' attempts to free Europe from the Nazi threat. This was also why Knight, who had fought for the Canadians in World War One, re-enlisted in the US Army.Today, the Surinamese are an intelligent and friendly group of people who were terrific hosts to me.Thanks, Betsy

I'm sure that when MGM was filming Lassie Come Home they were not aware they would be setting up the foundation of a collie franchise. The film obviously was meant to be a B picture filler as none of MGM's big box office names were used. But the story of the loyal collie dog who traveled over 1000 miles from Scotland to Yorkshire to return to his young master struck a nostalgic chord in the English speaking world.What MGM did do for this film was use location footage, most likely in California and film it in Technicolor. Doing that made the film a classic and wanted by today's market which disdains black and white.Two young future stars Roddy McDowall and Elizabeth Taylor are in this as children and they are an appealing pair. For the rest of the cast MGM made liberal use of the English colony in Hollywood with Elsa Lanchester, Donald Crisp, Nigel Bruce, Edmund Gwenn, Alan Napier, Arthur Shields, and Dame May Witty and her husband Ben Webster. In fact if you take away the two child stars, this film may just have the oldest average age of any film cast around.Elizabeth Taylor and Roddy McDowall formed a lifetime friendship from this film. She also became very attached to Donald Crisp who became a father figure for her until his death in 1974. Crisp and McDowall are reunited as father and son as they were in How Green Was My Valley.The plot is a simple one. Because he's out of work and needs the money for food on the table, Donald Crisp sells the pure bred collie to Lord Nigel Bruce who takes him from Yorkshire to Scotland. But Lassie ain't having this and escapes and makes the journey to what she considers home. The story is about her adventures on the way.After over 60 years Lassie is still appealing to children of all ages everywhere.