TOTAL RECALL
Ian ruffles the fur of Digby, The Biggest Dog In The World. Just don’t think of the poop scoop.
You don’t tend to think of Britain as giant creature feature territory, but we’ve had a crack at it a few times. 1961 saw Big Ben menaced by both a Godzilla-like beast in Gorgo, and a giant ape in Konga. But Blighty’s most charming attempt is this 1973 movie, in which an Old English Sheepdog swells to titanic proportions after eating an experimental growth formula, is sold to a circus, then escapes. They say familiarity breeds contempt, but I beg to differ when it comes to Digby. When I was a kid, it seemed to be on ITV every bank holiday, and I’ve got a huge soft spot for it. Based on a 1960 book by Ted Key (who also scripted Disney’s The Cat From Outer Space), its pedigree is pretty impressive. Screenwriter Michael Pertwee penned Terry-Thomas comedies like Too Many Crooks. Director Joseph McGrath helmed promos for Beatles hits such as “Ticket To Ride”. And cinematographer Harry Waxman was behind the camera on Brighton Rock and The Wicker Man. Plus, the cast includes practically every great British character actor of the period: Barbarella’s Durand Durand; Are You Being Served?’s Mr Peacock; The Vicar Of Dibley’s Frank Pickle; that bloke who got
suffocated by a plastic chair in Doctor Who... But the chief scene stealer is Spike Milligan as an outrageously accented German shrink, a role which basically requires him to scuttle about in the background and say things like, “Vot is der schnag?”
Digby himself (trained by Barbara Woodhouse) was Fernville Lord Digby, star of the Dulux ads throughout the ‘70s. There was obviously a product placement clause in his contract, as we see a Dulux ad on TV, and later a carefully positioned pot of paint!
It is a very silly film. It’s ridiculous that Jim Dale’s bumbling animal psychologist can track Digby better than the army. And the humour’s not exactly subtle (someone literally slips on a banana skin). But Dale’s accident-prone everyman act is as endearing as it was in the Carry On films; the process shots are pretty decent; and at the end, when a normal-sized Digby comes lolloping along seconds after apparently being bombed to bits by the RAF, I get a massive lump in my throat. Coming from a cat person, that’s high praise.
Digby is the only dog that Ian Berriman would ever want to call his own.