A Dog's Best Friend (1959) User Reviews (5)

Not quite a family film.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 1 June 2022]

This is more an adult drama concerning a troubled child who doesn't like his foster parents and only finds friendship in a vicious dog he manages to make trust him. Roger Mobley is an orphan taken in by Bill Williams and Marcia Henderson who doesn't like his foster siblings either. Williams is very concerned when he finds out that Mobley has befriended the dog who was trained to be vicious by his former owner who happened to be murdered over money he was hiding. It will take a lot of understanding and patience and love to bring this family together before Williams and Henderson will be able to be his legal guardians, but in the meantime, there's a murder to solve, and the audience pretty much knows who is guilty.

When I saw the name of the production company that was responsible for this film, I recognized it as the producer of various crime films made in the late 50s and early 60's, a total number of nine. This one seemed odd to be among their brief outfit, but when it gets into the crime element of the plot, it made sense even though it doesn't have the film more aspects of the other films they made.

Mobley has a really difficult job to do because his character is not at all sympathetic and neither is the foster father. In fact, foster mom Henderson doesn't seem to be really understanding either. The less said about the foster sister the better. Her scenes are certainly easy to fast forward through. Perhaps the fact that this seemed a bit more raw and less sentimental is the reason why it is extremely simple. This certainly isn't a typical tale of a boy and his closest pal.

A Dog's Breakfast.

[jean-suchard · 6/10 · 30 April 2023]

This low-budget movie has the look of a TV picture with such a simplistic drama of a boy and his dog. Shot in black and white with cheap sets and even less competent direction than a children's show of the time. The script is clunky and unnatural just like events during the movie such as the foster father sending his older son to disarm the troubled child who is guarded by a dangerous German Shepherd. Actually, thoroughly corny just like the rest of the plot involving murder, child trauma, and violence. The orphan boy, Pip, carries the movie as he appears in almost every scene and the boy actor (Roger Mobley) does a good job of acting sullen and angry at the world and everyone in it except his new four-legged friend. It was good to see Harry Dean Stanton in a very early film for him looking the same as he always did. The movie is a turkey in the end.

From the original pressbook...

[gr8dane · 14 June 2000]

The story follows an orphan (Mobley) who goes to live on a ranch. The boy is nothing but trouble until he befriends a wounded dog. The dog has found a gun, a murder weapon, and soon the boy and dog are being pursued by the killer. The dog, a German Shepherd, is named King.

The crime and the movie should have been better thought out

[bkoganbing · 2/10 · 23 June 2015]

I'm sure in its conception A Dog's Best Friend might have looked like a nice boy and dog story. But when it actually got made it really doesn't come off that good.

A sullen young Roger Mobley making his big screen debut is a foster child for Bill Williams and his wife Marcia Henderson. He befriends a wild German Shepherd and discovers the dog has a .38 caliber pistol in its possession as well.

At the same time an old miser hermit was found shot to death and his hoard of cash taken. The hermit was known to have a killer dog around for protection though it didn't do him that much good. The dog did however get a piece of one of the two robbers in this case Harry Dean Stanton in an early film for him.

All I can say is considering what the other robber did for a living, this could have and should have been a much better thought out crime. Stanton does give his partner up as he's about to lose an arm.

As for Mobley and the dog in real life after what he pulled he would have been whisked into juvenile prison so fast. See what he does and you'll agree.

One curious thing about A Dog's Best Friend is the presence of both Roger Mobley and Jimmy Baird who were regulars on the Fury TV show though not at the same time.

A Dog's Best Friend is one shoddy film with most of the players in a lot better films.

Looking for how to get a copy of "A Dog's Best Friend"

[trossworn · 10/10 · 19 December 2004]

I am the Terry Ann Ross that was in that film. I don't think I have ever seen it, or if I did, I was so young I forgot. If anyone knows how I can get a copy of it, I would most appreciate it. I was in several other movies, that I would love to see as well, (I just ordered a copy of Cry Terror). I am not sure this is the format to ask about something like this, as I am supposed to be rating the movie, but thought I would try. Thanks! I have to fill up 10 lines and really am not sure what else to say, other than thanks in advance for any info. Other movies would be All Mine to Give, The Trouble with Eunice.

Terry Rossworn, Terry Ann Ross