Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Kaydan Christian A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Mathilde the Guild Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

weezeralfalfa First, there is no character in this film called Lassie!, although Lassie may have been the mother of Bill, sometimes called Duke, who starts out as a puppy. Like the first 2 of this film series, the collie, whatever its name is, gets lost for part of the film, has a series of adventures, and eventually finds its way home......Apparently most of the shoots were taken around Lake Chelan: a long, narrow former glacial valley, with substantial mountains on either side, located in north central Washington state.......This time, 14y.o. Elizabeth Taylor(as Kathie) serves as Bill's non-military master, while Tom Drake, as Stg. Smitty, renames the dog as Duke and serves as his master while in the army. In training Duke to be a War Dog, the screenplay is repeating the main plot of the previous film; "Son of Lassie". This time, the dog's unit is assigned to the Aleutians, to fight the Japanese......Some reviewers question the wisdom of the long(20min) initial section, in which the future Bill is accidentally separated from his litter mates, and spends months, judging from his size progression, as a wild dog, in the forest, not seeing any humans. We are treated to seeing various wild animals, some of which Bill interacts with. This should be especially interesting to children, but I found parts interesting too. No mention is made of how Bill manages to survive as such. Presumably, he would be poor at chasing and killing substantial prey, although he stole a fish from a bear! Also, he would be subject to predation by carnivores such as cougars coyotes, or wolves and maybe even hawks and large owls. Also, when Kathie finds him wounded from a gunshot, and picks him up, she should have been wary that he might be a wild dog, and bite her. When recovered, she trains him to be a sheepdog. But, one day, he is run over by a truck. The driver takes him to a vet, but makes little effort finding his owner. So, after a couple months of rehabilitation, it's decided to give him to the army and make a war dog out of him, rechristening him as Duke. On duty, one day he is assigned to carry a message from a patrol in trouble to another patrol, traveling under heavy fire. He is hit and the message lost. He grows weaker and his legs are covered with mud making walking more difficult. He collapses as he reaches his goal. Strangely, there seems to be no radio contact between the 2 patrols. Thus, they ask the exhausted dog to guide them to the patrol in need of ammunition and more personnel. Slowly, he makes his way. He is considered a hero for his extreme effort. However, he then turns mean toward his handler and others. He's suffering from PTSD(or shell shock). It's decided to send him back to Washington state for some R&R. Serendipitously, he manages to jump off the train exactly when it passes Lake Chelan! But, he doesn't immediately find anyone who recognizes him. To survive, he steals chickens from various people. When he is finally found by Kathie, initially, he's hostile. But, there is a sudden change in him when she is knocked unconscious from a fall. He is now back to his old self. But, the victims of his raids want him declared a public nuisance and put away. A trial is held and it looks bad for Bill. But, Frank Morgan: a friend of Kathie's, notices a marking on one ear, and someone identifies it as a war dog ID. Morgan calls up the nearby dog training center and asks for Bill's record, finding that he is regarded as a war hero. This told to the judge, he decides to suspend the expected death penalty, and place him under the supervision of Kathie and Morgan. Note that it's not clear whether he still belongs to the army, or whether they want him released. This is not discussed. By the way, it would be nice for the owner, whoever it might be, to pay for the damage, which was not denied.......Now, suppose Bill were a man, a homeless veteran with a good record, who stole some chickens to keep from starving. Would he have received the same leniency? Should the past character of a person who has committed a crime be considered in sentencing? I think so.......This film is currently available in economical 3 and 4 packs of MGM Lassie-like films.

AaronCapenBanner Fred M. Wilcox returned to direct Lassie in his third film, but this is not a continuation of "Son Of Lassie", though original costar Elizabeth Taylor does return as a new character called Kathie Merrick, who rescues a collie pup, and names it Bill(Lassie is not the name here, despite the title!) whom she raises as a sheep-herder, until one day he is hit by a truck and taken to a veterinarian. Bill's life is saved, but is not identified, so is instead sent off as a war dog to assist soldiers in the trenches. Sadly, this experience turns Bill vicious, and upon his return home becomes a livestock killer. Can Kathie convince the court not to put Bill down? Strange film is mostly an uninspired rehash of the first two(unrelated) pictures, when it would have been far wiser to just continue that story, instead of creating this one. A wasted opportunity.

zetes The third movie in the Lassie series, this one confusingly stars a male dog named Pal playing a female dog named Lassie playing a male dog named Bill, who is then, in the course of the film re-named Duke. Got that? I guess it's not that important. Bill (terrible name for a dog) is born on an island. His mother's master rescues the mother and the rest of the litter, but doesn't see Bill, who then grows up in the wild. The wild, which is populated by a trained bear and some other animals. After growing up to adulthood, Bill is surprisingly non-feral and is discovered by a 14 year-old Elizabeth Taylor. Right after Taylor finds him, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer shoots him with bird shot. Taylor cares for him until he's well again, with the help of Frank Morgan. Then Bill is hit by an Army truck (the poor damn dog can't get a break). After he regains his strength again, the Army guys take him to Japan (or maybe Europe), where they use him as, I don't know, a decoy to draw enemy fire. He finally gets back to America and finds his way back to Elizabeth Taylor, but not before he kills some farm chickens. He's put on trial (!) and gets the death penalty. Frank Morgan saves him after discovering he was an Army dog and understanding he has post-traumatic stress syndrome. Anyway, this is obviously mind-numbingly stupid, and it provides a few good laughs that way in its run. It's filmed in a pretty Technicolor. But it's not worth seeing, obviously. As, I suppose, I watched this in honor of Taylor, I should say a brief word about her. She's a sweet kid, and, like in National Velvet, a pretty good actress already. The film is so silly, though, and she's not really in it that much that she can hardly save it.

Nazi_Fighter_David In "Courage of Lassie," the dog gets top billing, but a pretty teenager (Liz Taylor) has plenty of crying and hugging to do as a supremely devoted mistress… Another heart-warming story, filmed in the wilderness of Washington State, the movie (which begins with a long, curious, wild-life sequence) mixes farm-family folksiness with an unusual dog story: Lassie goes to a training school for war dogs, is shipped to the front and performs heroically… Returned to America, the dog suffers a nervous collapse, becoming a menace to society… As the willful farm girl who finds a dog, loses a dog, and regains a dog, Liz Taylor is again the overwrought, ecstatic child, lavishing her attention on Lassie… Because her greatest fame came later, as a young woman, most people forget what a skillful child actress she was… Less burdened than at any later time by her beauty and fame, she is at her least self-conscious in these early performances… Untouched, she reveals in these animal stories her natural flair for tears and hugs—the paraphernalia of an emotional female