Speaker 1: We all love dogs and if we don't, we should.
Speaker 1: And the people that started the movie industry pretty much
Speaker 1: knew that almost from the beginning. Did you know that,
Speaker 1: arguably the first movie to have a canine star, Blair
Speaker 1: in Rescued by Rover, was released in nineteen oh five.
Speaker 1: I'm Patty Steele. Guess what it seems? Blair's act was
Speaker 1: stolen decades later by none other than Lassie. That's next
Speaker 1: on the backstory. The backstory is back. There's something so
Speaker 1: organically attractive about little children and dogs, and when you
Speaker 1: put them together, it can be magic. Filmmakers seem to
Speaker 1: pick up on this from the very beginning of Silent Film.
Speaker 1: In nineteen oh five, the British director Lewis Fitzhaman capitalized
Speaker 1: on what he thought would be a magic combo. One
Speaker 1: year old Barbara Hepworth starred as kidnapped baby and the
Speaker 1: real Hepworth family dog Blair stole the show as Rover.
Speaker 1: Little Barbara's real life parents, Cecil and Margaret Hepworth plays
Speaker 1: mother and father, but they got very little attention even
Speaker 1: though they were big film people. The plot goes that
Speaker 1: the nanny was taking baby for a stroll in her carriage,
Speaker 1: and as she walked through the park, a gypsy woman
Speaker 1: approached asking for money. The nanny said no way and
Speaker 1: kept walking, but then she got distracted by a young
Speaker 1: soldier and started talking to him. That's when the beggar
Speaker 1: woman snuck up and snatched the baby from the carriage.
Speaker 1: In the next scene, the nanny goes home and confesses
Speaker 1: to the mother that baby has been lost. Aha, Rover,
Speaker 1: here's all this, and then Lassie esk jumps through the window,
Speaker 1: races down the street, around a corner, and across a river.
Speaker 1: The pup finds its way to a bad part of
Speaker 1: town and then barges through every door until he traces
Speaker 1: the scent of baby and runs up the stairs in
Speaker 1: an attic the beggar woman is taking off baby's clothing.
Speaker 1: Rover barks, but is dispatched by the woman, then again
Speaker 1: creating the Lassie playbook. Rover runs home and he goes
Speaker 1: nuts in front of the dad father follows him down
Speaker 1: the street, across the river and into the doorway of
Speaker 1: the house where baby is being held. She's rescued, unharmed
Speaker 1: and brought home, with Rover, of course, getting a lot
Speaker 1: of attention for his rescue. That seven minute movie was
Speaker 1: a sensation. Believe it or not, it cost about forty
Speaker 1: bucks to make and help turn movie making into a
Speaker 1: storytelling medium rather than just a scientific novelty. For the director,
Speaker 1: Lewis Fitzhayman, this was his biggest film of the four
Speaker 1: hundred that he made. He had other animal flicks such
Speaker 1: as Dog Outwits the Kidnappers, which is kind of based
Speaker 1: on the Rover movie, but Rover was his tour deiforce.
Speaker 1: He did manage to sell four hundred copies of the
Speaker 1: film for about ten bucks apiece, so he did make
Speaker 1: a few bucks, but Blair, as Rover the Dog became
Speaker 1: a household name. He's considered the world's first canine film star.
Speaker 1: This was the first appearance of a dog in a
Speaker 1: narrative based film, and believe it or not, that movie
Speaker 1: made the pretty uncommon name of Rover into one of
Speaker 1: the most popular names for dogs in the first half
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century. Blair went on to make a
Speaker 1: number of other films over the next five years, but
Speaker 1: was first and foremost the Hepworth Family Dog. Another early
Speaker 1: canine star was Shep. He starred in an eleven minute
Speaker 1: film that was a huge critical hit in nineteen fourteen.
Speaker 1: It was called A Dog's Love and it was very emotional. Again,
Speaker 1: the dog was the star. It was about a dog
Speaker 1: who loses his best friend, a small girl whose killed
Speaker 1: when she's hit by a car. The movie focuses on
Speaker 1: the dog's emotions in dealing with his loss. Audiences love
Speaker 1: this flick because of its universally appealing theme. The description says,
Speaker 1: the movie focuses on a poor, little rich girl who
Speaker 1: has no one to play with. You see Baby Helen
Speaker 1: with her doll looking out the window while other children play.
Speaker 1: Baby Helen sets up a tea party in the yard
Speaker 1: by herself and the neighbor's dog. Shep comes out to play.
Speaker 1: She invites him to the tea party to share a muffin.
Speaker 1: A week later, four year old Helen is sent out
Speaker 1: on an errand. Not sure who sends a four year
Speaker 1: old on an errand, but as she crosses the street,
Speaker 1: she's hit by a passing car. SHEP races to her
Speaker 1: rescue and then runs for the parents, but it's too late.
Speaker 1: He's devastated. She's died. Then, in one of the earliest
Speaker 1: and best uses of double exposure, Helen's ghost comes back
Speaker 1: and guides Shep to her her grave, where he then
Speaker 1: brings flowers and lays by her gravestone. People were beside
Speaker 1: themselves with this story, and again it helped transition film
Speaker 1: into a theatrical event that made people feel something that
Speaker 1: told a real story. There's a final screen title in
Speaker 1: that movie that says, don't cry, It's only make believe,
Speaker 1: showing Helen holding flowers and leaning against Shep. It's a
Speaker 1: reminder of little kids in the audience that it was
Speaker 1: all simply a story. Critics loved it. The Chicago Tribune
Speaker 1: wrote two more attractive artists never collaborated in a single
Speaker 1: production than This Star Baby and This Star Dog. The
Speaker 1: picture is a miniature masterpiece. Just a few years later, W. C. Fields,
Speaker 1: with both of these flicks in mind, was quoted as saying,
Speaker 1: never make a movie with a kid or a dog.
Speaker 1: They always steal the show. Hope you like the backstory
Speaker 1: with Patty Steele. Please leave a review. I'd love it
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Speaker 1: It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm
Speaker 1: Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks,
Speaker 1: the Elvis Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer
Speaker 1: is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new
Speaker 1: episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out
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Speaker 1: at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The
Speaker 1: pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.