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Censored by Withdrawal... WHITE DOG by Samuel Fuller

posted 21 years ago by Louisamike
26 replies | jump to latest

Hi,
I saw this film a long time ago and I've been trying to get a video or a DVD but after long researches, I found out that WHITE DOG by Samuel Fuller had been purely and simply censored and withdrawn from the market!!
I was and I am still shocked! I don't get it! So, nowadays, there are still such practices... and you should see the film: the subject is wonderful: a dog trainer (who happens to be black) tries to deprogram a white dog that was trained to kill only black people
if such a subject is to be censored, I must return in my twilight zone!
Is there something to be done? A censorboardship to contact to let them know that may be the guy responsible for this withdrawal was maybe an alcoholic with problems in his personal life and at the edge of a nervous breakdown or simply a racist who doesn't want people to know that such things actually existed... which is a crime towards art and freedom in my opinion. This is a film, a point of view magnified by an artist and censoring is an incredible awful ultimate sanction that has to be questionned! It is not the best film ever made on racism but still it is a good film made by an artist who wanted people to be able to look at it and react to it!
Anyway, if anyone knows how to find a copy of this movie, I am VERY interested! So, thank you for letting me know!
Thank you very much in advance!

[–] kmagnuson 21 years ago

There are currently 2 VHS copies of this movie available on ebay, and sometimes it'll pop up in other auction sites. Happy hunting.

[–] Louisamike 21 years ago

thank you very much.
I go directly to ebay site!!!

[–] HorrorMovieLuvinChick 21 years ago

I LOVED this movie! I happen to be black but I didn't find this movie offensive or any of the such. I work in the animal care profession (have worked in kennels and vet office) and I see animals that come in that aren't TRAINED to be aggressive towards a particular race but have not been around that race and are just aggressive because of that. I seen this movie on TV...because of thiscensorship do you think it will be back on say cable?

Kia
"Anyone can own a POODLE, a real woman owns a DOBERMAN."

[–] passenger62 18 years ago

everyone submit this to criterion collection as a title suggestion. maybe they'll pick up on it.

[–] jopemoro 21 years ago

It just now finished airing on cable here in Spain. I think it's just a matter of the copyrigtt owners believing there is no sizeable market for this to appear on DVD or re-release it on VHS...

Start campaigning! 8-)

[–] TheDevilYouKnew 19 years ago

truegore.com

[–] aclockwork_oranges71 19 years ago

I copied this movie off of the cable onto a vhs tape and will transfer it on a dvd-r for myself to enjoy!

[–] tek-serivo 18 years ago

personally, i haven't seen this film, but i've heard about it, to me, cencorship of any film is a crime, but thanks to dvds and a basis of people now wanting uncut versions of films i seriously doubt that this film will be held out of circulation for much longer, if a master copy of the film still exists.

[–] mandysblackroses 18 years ago

I own a copy of White Dog on DVD, no dought a boot leg, but I bought it off Ebay, and there are NO subtitles in it, and the picture quality is pretty good. Concidering it was prob copied a hundred times. The movie was in NO WAY rassit! It was against racism. The rumor I heard was that Fuller was a Racist because he made an appearence in the film as the dogs first ownder who trained him. Bunch of Bull for sure. Anyhow, the movie is a cult classic and I loved it.

~If you saw a Black Rose, would you Admire it for it's Beauty or Kill it beacuse it was Diffrent?~

[–] davea-8 18 years ago

From what I understand, someone from the NAACP visited the set and determined that the scenes being filmed were racist. The NAACP contacted Paramount and Paramount caved before even seeing the finished cut. A shame.

[–] 18 years ago

[deleted]

[–] guigui-paul 18 years ago

WHITE DOG was shown uncut and in a decent print last year on the french tv.
The film is shocking,unsettling,moving,powerful,beautifully acted and clever...this is a really great film that deserves to be available on dvd!

[–] dsobczak0942 18 years ago

The film is shocking,unsettling,moving,powerful,beautifully acted and clever...this is a really great film that deserves to be available on dvd!

That describes most of Sam Fuller's movies... It's a shame that you can't get most of them on video and dvd except for bootlegs.

The stuff he could do with very limited budgets was amazing.

My Favorites http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=16092395

[–] tenleygirl 18 years ago

I saw this movie last summer (2005) at the on campus art museum at Northwestern University (which runs a film series). It is not racist (and the message is the opposite). However, if you want a really good story read the book White Dog by Romain Gary. That said, I think it's a shame that a movie like this should be treated like this in the United States. All sorts of crap gets released in this country. Why not this?

Most people are so ungreatful to be alive, but not you. Not anymore.
~Saw~

[–] tallpall 18 years ago

it wont be released because America continues to have racial problems.

[–] mego-6 18 years ago

Hi, can you tell me which torrent site has the movie White Dog for download?
Thank you in advance for your help

[–] artihcus022 16 years ago

The reason that most believe the movie never made it out was that the studio gave Sam the OK to film a movie about trying to de-program an attack dog because of his success with The Big Red One. When they found out it was about a dog trained to kill blacks they pulled their backing. No one has ever proved that the NAACP said anything about this movie.

That's not true. Don Simpson was the guy who greenlit the project which had long been in what is now called "development hell". Roman Polanski was going to do it until the whole rape controversy scared him to leave America.

Don Simpson commisioned a series of low budget films made in the 80's in the wake of a writers'-strike which halted production-An Officer and a Gentleman was one of these. His vision of the film which leaked out was well pretty racist. It involved a beautiful white girl with her white dog suddenly attacking black people.

This naturally offended the NAACP and more importantly the producer Jon Davison(who worked on a number of Corman films in the 60's which dealt with the Civil Rights period). Curtis Hanson who was given the screenplay to write didn't think anything could be done either. Then he had the genius idea of calling Fuller and getting him to do it. Davison agreed and the film was made. Fuller re-wrote the screenplay thoroughly with Hanson. Like Paul Winfield in the film, he re-programmed a shlocky thriller racist film into a deeply unconventional(in some respects experimental) anti-racist film that is deeply unsettling and disturbing.

Don Simpson when he saw the film didn't get the thriller that could have become a box-office success riding on the wave of a scandal(yep that cynicism began there). Instead he had no use for an actual anti-racist film so he suppressed the film after a couple of previews citing the protestors as his cause. No good two-timing back-stabbing scoundrel.

"Ça va by me, madame...Ça va by me!" - The Red Shoes

[–] lise_lewalski 18 years ago

I'm 26 now. I saw this movie on Danish TV as a very small child, so it must have been in the late 80's, and it scared the crap out of me.

I find it interesting to go back, through IMDB, and see how other people have experienced movies from my childhood.

The movie certainly raises some powerful issues, but I'm honestly not surprised to find that it's been censured in the States.

[–] edela002 17 years ago

The movie is actually being released in 2008 throught the Criterion Collection. They alluded to this in their most recent newsletter as part of a trivia question. Now its just a matter of waiting for a legitimate and quality (it is a Criterion) dvd of I'm sure another classic Fuller film...

[–] magicstrip 17 years ago

Who said actually "White Dog" had been "censored and withdrawn from the market" ?
Just because it wasn't yet released on DVD doesn't means it has been censored - there are a lot of movies still waiting for their DVD-release. (And how could it be "withdrawn from the market" if it never has been made available to begin with?)

To the one who wrotes:
"This movie is available through some torrent sites and should be considered a legal download because it's not in print anywhere in the U.S."

Uuuh, are you kidding ?!

Do you really believe that just because a movie isn't available as a DVD or VHS, makes it legal to download it for free ?! Come on... This movie is still under copyrights, and that's what matters.
(Disney's "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs", for instance, wasn't available on VHS until 1994, and still it would have been illegal to give away copies of it!)

[–] malcomforbes 17 years ago

It was withdrawn, sorta. It ha d a brief in 1991, 9 years after intended release, and was never put on home video.

Somebody set us up the bomb!

[–] DakotaKitten 11 years ago

The film is now available on a very good blu ray edition from the UK, it's region coded B so you will need a multi-region player if you are from the USA.

M
http://www.darkrealmfox.com/

[–] Dragonetta 17 years ago

No doubt. Same reason why the movie "Panther" cost a couple of hundred dollars on Amazon.com. The PTB don't want people to see movies like that and get inspired to fight back against racism.

D.

Suzuki Samurai, you Bensonhurst piece of *beep*

[–] malteehlers 12 years ago

currently being shown on Danish national TV.

[–] Haverchuck_Is_King 12 years ago

You can watch it online in the US right now on Netflix.

[–] rapalmi 11 years ago

Yes, thank God for video! I tried to see this film at the American Film Institute Theater at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., sometime in the late eighties (I think). It was scheduled for one or two evening screenings. (It was never shown commercially in Washington, despite a major director, and major actors). I arrived at the theater after an hour's drive and after paying for parking nearby, only to find out that the screening had been canceled. I found out at the box office that Paramount had refused to provide a print at the last minute because of the controversy caused by the NAACP. So much for free speech in America. I finally saw the movie a few years later on cable and discovered it to be one of Fuller's best films and probably the most cogent, scathing attack on racism ever put on film. If an artist creates an intelligently critical work on racism in America, he is likely to be attacked and censored, as Mark Twain found out in the 19th Century, when libraries refused to put HUCKLEBERRY FINN on their shelves. WHITE DOG is a great work of art. And thank you, Criterion--I can finally replace my VHS bootleg of the Dutch release.