Cinema: Dogged Devotion

Greyfriars Bobby (Buena Vista). Once upon a time, about a hundred years ago, a frisky little Skye terrier lived in the Lammermuir Hills near Edinburgh and loved Auld Jock the shepherd with dogged devotion. One day, too old to earn his keep, the shepherd (Alexander Mackenzie) was heartlessly turned off the croft. The terrier followed his master to town, sat by his side while he died in a dismal padding ken, followed his coffin to Greyfriars kirkyard, plumped himself down on the old man’s grave to spend the night. “No dogs allowed!” the sour old sexton (Donald Crisp) bellowed, and booted him out the gate. But that night and every night Bobby sneaked back in to sleep on his master’s grave, soon became such an object of civic admiration in Edinburgh that the Lord High Commissioner awarded him the Freedom of the City, and the right perpetual to sleep on his master’s grave.

Too goo to be true? No, the dear little beastie really lived, and in Edinburgh there stands a bronze statue of Bobby to prove it. In 1912 one Eleanor Atkinson made Bobby the dogtagonist of a novel, and now Walt Disney, who has released two other dog shows (101 Dalmatians and Nikki, Wild Dog of the North) so far in 1961, offers this glossy rebrush of the book. Children will do well to sit up and beg for the film, and even grown-up judges may affectionately award it a tear-soaked blue ribbon. Actor Mackenzie is wonderfully canty and touching as Auld Jock—and as a muttinee idol the Skye’s the limit.