by Eve Golden

(originally printed in Classic Images, "The Film Fan Newspaper”, January 1998)

Viewers of short subjects shown on Turner Classic Movies may be forgiven for rubbing their eyes and thinking they are having an LSD flashback or suffering from temporary movie overload. But, no, those dressed-up, talking dogs you see are for real: from 1929 through 1931, MGM produced a series of nine so-called "Barkies," utilizing dog actors, tiny little clothing, human voice-overs and plots lifted from recent MGM films. They are, without exaggeration, the weirdest damn things you will ever see. Author Richard Barrios, in his delightful book "A Song in the Dark," was so appalled at the "nightmarish" shorts that he sputtered, "it's enough to turn the most apathetic cinephile into an animal rights activist." Barrios has a point: the dogs do look uncomfortable, the dialogue is inane, the whole concept so bizarre that you suspect someone at MGM must have been sniffing paint fumes. But the Dogville shorts are also high (or low, if you will) camp. Like lawn flamingos, Ed Wood movies and Gilligan's Island, the Dogvilles are so bad they're wonderful.

The whole mess started in the summer of 1929, when America was going talkie-crazy. Like most studios, MGM got its feet wet with short subjects. Among many produced that year were Hot Dog and College Hounds, produced by Harry Rapf and directed by Zion Myers and Julius White, using some 50 dogs provided by well-known movie-dog trainer "Rennie" Renfro. Renfro, who had a large ranch in Van Nuys, had been training dogs--many of them strays and mutts--for the movies for years.

Hot Dog involved a cabaret murder and trial, and College Hounds was the typical football story. Those first two films, released in early 1930, were such hits that MGM producer Harry Rapf signed White and Myers for six more pictures. The war film All Quiet on the Canine Front followed, also in the spring of 1930. The reviews were surprisingly thorough and positive. Film Daily called Hot Dog "one of the best short subjects ever," and Motion Picture News added that it was "ace-high entertainment." Only Variety was somewhat taken aback by All Quiet, suggesting that The Great War as enacted by talking dogs was more disturbing than funny. Another reviewer compared College Hounds to the Our Gang shorts. The Dogvilles had arrived, and MGM was thrilled.

Making the Dogvilles was no easy task. Once the dogs were chosen and trained, they were put through their paces: "the set is a regular bedlam of noise with all of the trainers shouting at their respective dogs," recalled reporter Dan Thomas. Myers outlined the tricks of the trade: to get a dog to cock his ears and look surprised, a bug or a toy was dangled in front of him. "Other dogs...will register amazement and curiosity at the unexpected sight of a piece of hamburger, a ball, a bird whistle or a false face," he said. Getting them to "talk" usually involved the old Mr. Ed trick of taffy.

Once the film was shot, it was into the editing room with the voice-overs (many of them done by White and Myers themselves). The lines were written to match the scenes shot, and the dogs' mouth and body movements. Versions were dubbed into French, German and Spanish, which would make truly startling viewing today. Motion Picture Classic wrote that "there is a note of irony in the story of a girl who worked for years trying to achieve a career in pictures--and who has settled down at last, for the time being, anyhow, to be a voice for a dog!" "Irony" might not be the word chosen by the girl herself.

In the summer of 1930, The Dogville Murder Case (also known as Who Killed Rover?) was released. This one was downright weird: detective Fido Vance is hired by a nervous bride to protect her husband, Rover, from greedy relatives. Rover is kidnapped and -- in a twist unheard of in a real MGM film -- is killed before Vance can save him. "I regret to inform you that you are now a widow," he tells the bride, who shrieks, "eeek!" and keels over. The End. There is also a very funny police line-up, featuring a dead ringer for Marie Dressler (a bulldog named Laddie), and a gay dog who was "strolling in the park." Filmograph felt it was "amazingly clever," and felt "the dogs are perfect in their difficult roles."

As the series progressed, three stars emerged. Jiggs was the character actor of the cast: a snub-faced mixed-breed dog with short, dark fur and pointy ears, he played villains, detectives and rascals. The leading man of the company was the sleek, handsome Buster, a perky four-year-old who had been appearing in Educational shorts before signing his big MGM contract. Buster was the Richard Barthelmess, the Dick Powell: a clean-cut, all-American romantic hero. But the true star was a white-faced, big-eyed Boston terrier who played the leading lady roles. Oscar was the Norma Shearer of Dogville. Or actually, the Julian Eltinge, as Oscar was a female impersonator. Short subjects were something of a comedown for Oscar, who had appeared in such features as The Student Prince, The Love Parade and The Leather Pushers.

The shorts were proving quite popular with audiences; everyone was astonished by this, and low-budget studio Tiffany promptly began making shorts featuring "talking" monkeys. The monkeys actually got good reviews, but couldn't hold a candle to the canine crew. In July 1930 Oscar and Buster went on a personal appearance tour, and in March 1931 they hit the Fanchon & Marco vaudeville circuit with Renfro and some other canine actors. Humorist H.W. Hannemann conducted a three-page "interview" with Oscar in the May 1931 Modern Screen (Oscar, like Julian Eltinge, looked somewhat odd and uncomfortable in male clothing). A local veterinarian was even licensed by MGM to make dog food under the name MGM Barkies.

The star trio was featured next in The Big Dog House, a prison film parody, released in September of 1930. In this tale, sales clerk Buster is set-up by his boss, Jiggs, who wants to make time with his girl (Oscar, of course, in one of his greatest dramatic performances). Newspapers noted the huge cast, the tiny prison uniforms, and Jiggs' debut in a villainous role.

Not surprisingly, questions of animal cruelty came up, shortly after the release of this film. L.A. humane commissioner Ben Hershfield investigated, and reported the dogs were not ill-treated, that they even had their own dressing rooms with air-conditioning, hot water and a 50-foot doggie run (this was just for the stars, of course: the bit players were kept in a large kennel, not unlike most bit players). Rennie Renfro was adamant that his dogs were pampered and happy. "A dog that has been beaten into tricks can't be depended upon," he said, no doubt from experience. "The only trained dog that counts is the one that has been so handled that he gets a big kick out of working ... Dogs get to be very proud when they learn to do something and they love to show off. They know, too, when they have failed. If Buster does a good scene well, he jumps into my arms for a kiss. If he has been a flop, he sneaks off to a dark corner." Renfro also insisted that the dogs were trained to walk upright, using a large rubber ball. This is sheer nonsense. Most of the dogs are clearly held upright with wires under their front legs, which looks horrendously painful: this is the main problem with the Dogville shorts (besides, of course, the fact that they are so hilariously awful overall). Had the cast walked on all fours, perhaps the effect wouldn't be quite so appalling. Myers noted the dogs couldn't be overworked, or they would start to pant ("we only let them pant in love scenes," he lamely joked).

The manager noted that "this is the first time in 11 years that a comedy has stopped my show." A Philadelphia reviewer called it "the funniest comedy that has been produced since the talkies."

Apparently it was a bit of a struggle to get the cast into their tiny, elaborate costumes, but once in, they became quite possessive. "You should see the fireworks if we try to put one dog's costume on another," said White. "They can smell the difference, you know. And how they resent it!" Renfro added that the best-behaved dogs tended to be the mutts. "I don't know why it is," he said, "but thoroughbreds are seldom clever enough to learn many tricks or take direction from the eyes or hands of their master."

With the success of Dogway Melody, White and Myers found their contracts picked up for an additional six films, though only three were shot. The first of these (released in the summer of 1931) was Love Tales of Morocco. This drama featured Foreign Legionnaires reminiscing about the women who done them wrong (Oscar was, of course, a dance-hall girl who two-timed poor cowboy Buster). One racy pre-Code line got past the censors: two gossipy dogs say about a third, "I hear she had her tail lifted!" Though it was perhaps the most disjointed of the shorts, the critics still did nip-ups over it.

The next short, Two Barks Brothers, actually had nothing to do with the Marxes; it was a political comedy wherein an anti-liquor district attorney is framed by his evil opponent. "Good for laughs anywhere," enthused Motion Picture Daily over this entry.

The final Dogville entry, late in 1931, was Trader Hound, a fairly high-budget African adventure, with Buster in the dashing title role, Jiggs all done up in blackface and Afro wig, and Oscar in the Edwina Booth role, complete with a very fetching long blonde wig. It snuck in and out of theaters and was barely noticed by the same critics who had been declaring Oscar the new Norma Shearer less than a year before.

Then, not unlike Edwina Booth herself, Oscar and his co-stars vanished from the screen. Columnists suggested all kinds of follow-ups: The Trial of Mary Doggan, Captain Bloodhound, Grand Kennel, et al. But the series had, mercifully, run its course. Like Garbo, the stars vanished into retirement: Oscar, Buster and Jiggs returned to private life. Bizarrely, a clip of Oscar doing a harem dance (from Dogway Melody) has lately surfaced in an airline commercial, but it seems to be his only legacy. One can hope that Turner will see fit to release the Dogvilles on video, so a new generation can be charmed and horrified by the oddest little hiccup of shorts ever produced by a major studio.