Customer Reviews

Hambone & Hillie [VHS]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For any family that loves dogs, this is a great movie! I rented it every weekend when I was a kid. There is a death of a dog which always made me cry, but it really is a cute tale. I hope I can find it for our family library.

This sounds incredible, but it is true. There is a family picture starring Lilian Gish, Candy Clark, Timothy Bottoms and O. J. Simpson. You can see young Will Wheaton, too. The film's name is "Hambone and Hillie" made back in 1984. But what a cast!

The "Lassie"-like story is nothing special, but still good for any one who loves dogs. An old lady's dog is accidentally left behind at the NYC airport, and Hambone (that's the dog's name) travels across the country via Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Chicago and St. Louis, to Los Angels. Hambone meets people (largely good people) and other dogs (all good dogs) on the way, with occasional joyful adventures and sad trials.

[FAMILY PICTURE ... ALMOST] So, Why two stars, you might ask me. The reason is simple. Everything about the film is just OK - its dog, its story, its technical things like editing and photography, or acting of the stars - everything is so-so, but I still would have given three stars or more to the film if it had not contained one very misguided episode about escaped convicts (not the funny type Laurel and Hardy did) trying to kill a pregnant lady (Candy Clark). Of course, they only "try to," but what is worse than that is the end result -- two supposedly dead bodies of humans, one guy stabbed by a pitchfork and the other shot in the stomach. I am not joking.

The film as a whole is not that terrible, but it is still undeniable that this "suspense" set-piece (and most of other episodes) is poorly told and characters are rather inspid. No wonder few people have heard about this one.