Beware of the Dog-1

Sam Fuller's last film made in the United States was never given a proper release. White Dog was based on a Romain Gary article in Life Magazine about a stray dog Gary took in, only to discover later it had been trained to attack black people. Fuller had tackled the topic of race as early as The Steel Helmet (1951), a film that attacked both segregation and the Japanese internment camps in the U.S.

Thus, Fuller was "flabbergasted" when a representative from the NAACP showed up on the set while he was filming, "to see if our film was 'distorting the image of black people'" (A Third Face 491). The incident still obviously nags at Fuller in his autobiography, leading him into one of his trademark tirades: "Why hadn't an organization as prestigious as the NAACP done their homework and checked out my record before sending a man to spy on my work?. . . .For Christsakes, I'd put my life on the line to stand up for democracy, fighting fascism because it was antagonistic to the Jeffersonian principle that all men are created equal, endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these life, liberty, and the goddamned pursuit of happiness!"

Fuller got the NAACP man removed from the set, but rumors began to circulate about his film once it was finished, and Paramount decided to shelve it. Fuller had hoped it would at least be shown on TV: "NBC was supposed to show it but they decided not to because, they said, 'It is inappropriate.' What kind of word is that? 'Inappropriate' is going to your mother's funeral in a jockstrap." (Interview with Lee Server, Film is a Battleground 54).