Challenge to Lassie

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Challenge to Lassie
Charles Edgar Schoenbaum
Edited byGeorge White
Music byAndré Previn
Production
company
Distributed byLoew's Inc.
Release date
US October 31, 1949 (1949-10-31)
Running time
76 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$775,000[1]
Box office$1,155,000[1]

Challenge to Lassie is an American drama directed by

Pal, and the fourth and final Lassie film starring Donald Crisp
.

The movie is based on

Greyfriars Bobby
.

Set in Scotland in 1860, the film tells the story of a rough collie named Lassie whose master, Jock Gray, is killed by robbers in Edinburgh. After his death, the dog keeps a constant vigil beside her master's grave in Greyfriars Kirkyard, which is in violation of the local dog laws. In the original novel, the title dog was a Skye Terrier named Bobby and his owner dies from pneumonia.

Plot

Jock Gray (Donald Crisp
) raises his collie Lassie to be an extraordinary sheep dog and companion. When he is beaten to death by robbers after he retires, Lassie keeps vigil over his grave and refuses to let anyone else take ownership of her. However, the law requires that all dogs be leashed and licensed by a legal owner. With no owner to pay her license and her only "home" being the church graveyard, Lassie faces an uncertain future.

Her late owner's friend

Lord Provost
.

Cast

Music

In 2010, Film Score Monthly released the complete scores of the seven Lassie feature films released by MGM between 1943 and 1955 as well as Elmer Bernstein’s score for It's a Dog's Life (1955) in the CD collection Lassie Come Home: The Canine Cinema Collection, limited to 1000 copies. Due to the era when these scores were recorded, nearly half of the music masters have been lost so the scores had to be reconstructed and restored from the best available sources, mainly the Music and Effects tracks as well as monaural ¼″ tapes.[2]

The score for Challenge to Lassie was composed by André Previn. The music-and-effects tracks from Challenge to Lassie supplied by the studio were missing approximately 10 minutes of the score. In order to provide the most complete listening experience of this early Previn effort, FSM has taken these missing tracks directly from the film, incorporated in chronological film order along with the music-and-effects tracks.[2]

Track listing for Challenge to Lassie (Disc 4)

  1. Main Title and Foreword* - 1:26
  2. Market Day* - 0:48
  3. Lassie’s First Love* - 1:10
  4. First Lesson* - 0:29
  5. Sheep Herding*/Jock and the Flock* - 2:41
  6. You’ve Trained Her Well* - 0:24
  7. There’s My Bonnie* - 0:38
  8. Jock Is Attacked* - 1:17
  9. After the Fight*† - 0:44
  10. Graveyard Lassie* - 0:20
  11. John Sans Pants* - 0:44
  12. Complaining Neighbors* - 1:03
  13. The Journey*/Lassie’s Last Lap* - 4:11
  14. Lassoed Lassie* - 1:05
  15. No Exit* - 0:48
  16. Cornered Collie*† - 0:20
  17. Down the Cliffs*/Here’s Lassie*† - 2:09
  18. I Cannot Apologize*† - 0:47
  19. Laugh After Laugh*† & End Title*/End Cast - 1:18

Contains Sound Effects

†Contains Dialogue

Total Time: 23:04

Reception

According to MGM records the film earned $850,000 in the US and Canada and $330,000 overseas resulting in a loss to the studio of $156,000.[1]

Home media

Challenge to Lassie was released to

clamshell
case. A second VHS version was released on September 1, 1998 featuring Donald Crisp and Lassie on the cover and in a standard slipcover case.

References

  1. ^ a b c The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
  2. ^ a b "Lassie Come Home: The Canine Cinema Collection (1943-1955)". Film Score Monthly. Retrieved November 21, 2019.

External links

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