BACK IN THE 1920s MGM WAS SAID TO
be the Tiffany & Co. of motion-picture studios. They spared no expense, producing exquisitely detailed sets, props and costumes. Their new dog movies, despite the silliness of the concept, were no exception. “MGM’S focus was on classy, polished-looking comedies, drama and musicals,” says Arnold. “Even the Dogville shorts, as crazy as they were, were made with real professionalism, not just crudely slapped together.” The miniature recreation of the No Man’s Land set from All Quiet On The Western Front, for one, is almost identical to the real thing.
This diligence was applied equally to casting. Hollywood’s premier animal trainer, Rennie Renfro, was hired to put together the perfect ensemble. The leader of the pack was Buster, a handsome mixed-breed Renfro had bought for $25, convinced he had star potential. Backing him up were Oscar, a white-haired Boston terrier with soulful eyes, who was invariably given a female role and put in a dress; Laddie, a glum-faced bulldog; and Jiggs, an energetic hound with a pushed-in nose who was apparently able to say the words “mama”, “papa” and “hamburger”.
Buster proved an exceptionally intelligent creature. In a 1933 article for Popular Science magazine, writer Andrew R. Boone described giving him commands, written on cards by Renfro. “As I selected cards, ordering the dog to ‘crawl’, ‘stand up’ and ‘turn around’, I realised he was following no set routine, that he actually understood the message conveyed,” Boone said. “On a movie set, Renfro need only show Buster a card and he performs as faithfully as any human actor.” MGM’S human stars, including Greta Garbo, would frequently wander onto the soundstages to watch with a smile. Still, orchestrating the dogheavy action proved a formidable challenge. “Directing a dog comedy isn’t quite as hard as one might suppose, but it does require a great amount of patience,” said Myers. Peanut butter was smeared onto surfaces to lure the dogs and toffee used to make them chomp, while at some points as many as six different trainers were on set, trying desperately to co-ordinate scenes and probably thanking their lucky stars they weren’t working with horses.
“The set is a regular bedlam of noise with all of the trainers shouting at their respective dogs,” wrote reporter Dan Thomas, who was invited onto the MGM lot. “Directors use rattles, whistles, handkerchiefs, tidbits of meat, or anything that will draw the animals’ attention.” Another writer watched as an entire day was spent getting one of the dogs to bark at its own reflection.
How long it took to shoot the prison riot in The Big Dog House is unknown. Or the rough-and-tumble American football game in College Hounds. Surely the most time-consuming, however, was the spectacular battle in So Quiet On The Canine Front, which boasts massive explosions, a bulldog piloting a biplane (disguised as a nurse!), strings of sausages standing in for barbed wire, and the immortal line, “We will lure the enemy out with these irresistable wieners into no-man’s land and our machine gunners will do the rest!” Unlike its source material, it didn’t win an Oscar, but the effects are still impressive. And monumentally trippy.