Pound

Directed by Robert Downey Sr., 1970
Cast: Lawrence Wolf, Marshall Efron, Antonio Fargas, Stan Gottlieb

By Alyce Wilson

Considered lost for many years, Pound has recently resurfaced. Apparently, the wildly experimental film, which follows the fates of 18 dogs — played by human actors — in a dog pound, flummoxed studio heads. As a result, the movie only ever received limited arthouse release, and few prints were struck. One print came to light recently, which had been in the possession of the cinematographer.

According to director Robert Downey Sr., experts did a color correction and worked to restore the sound. The print, he said was "dead", or virtually unplayable. But thanks to painstaking work, this previously lost film was shown at the 2006 Philadelphia Film Festival.

The movie was definitely experimental. Based on an off-off-Broadway play, it reminded me of Bertolt Brecht, who wanted the audience to think rather than to get involved with the characters. As a result, much of Brecht's dialogue is absurdist. Perhaps a better comparison would be with the Theater of the Absurd, a movement that flourished after World War II and deliberately eschewed plot in favor of incoherence, undercutting audience expectations.

A lot of the dialogue in Pound made sense on an intuitive level, if not a logical level. Often, rather than conversations, the characters engaged in what you might call joint monologues, where they traded lines but each pursued their own trains of thought. If you think about it in context, it makes a kind of sense. After all, dogs communicate more through vocal intonation than through words.

The actors did a fantastic job of embodying the animals they represented. A particular audience favorite was Lawrence Wolf as a Mexican Hairless. He was always talking, bragging about his supposedly fantastic life experiences, just like one of those small yippy dogs, who never shut up and have inflated egos.

Marshall Efron, who has a long career as a character actor and voice actor, played a Dachshund who's in love with an old Pekinese, locked in solitary in an adjoining cage. He had decided to stop obeying his masters and paid the price by being sent to the pound.

Another dog kept approaching others and demanding, "You owe me two dollars," which seemed a perfect shorthand for the way that dogs challenge each other when trying to establish a pack order. If the other dogs seemed intimidated, he grew more insistent, but if they responded with aggression, he went away.

Elsie Downey, Robert Downey's first wife and mother of their two children, played a Mutt Bitch who often burst out into song and who laughed off anyone who tried to mount her. This reminded me of dogs that like to bay at the moon, or at the sun, or the water dish.

Stan Gottlieb played a Boxer who had seen better days and greeted the coming needle with acceptance. He still had plenty of fight in him, and he got lots of laughs by taking unexpected swipes at those who offended him, always besting them despite his apparent frailty. I imagined an old dog, still tough enough to defend himself when he's backed into a corner.

A puppy, played by Robert Downey Jr., in his first film appearance, is brought in and greeted by the Mexican Hairless, who brags about how great he is. The puppy smiles and makes a comment about his baldness. Everybody in the audience laughed.

The puppy's stay is brief. When robbers try to hold up the keeper and find out there's no money to be had, they take the puppy instead. Robert Downey Jr. delivers his second line, then, about how, "They're all going to die."

A Greyhound played by Antonio Fargas, who also has a long list of TV and movie credits, is convinced that his trainer will rescue him. But as he relates, his winning days are over and his poor performances have sealed his fate.

Carolyn Groves portrays a Pedigreed Bitch who was sent to the pound because she refused to do what her owners wanted. She speaks with a Southern accent and acts superior, walking with perfect posture, wearing a frilly dress and bonnet.

The other denizens of the pound include a street dog who's depressed that no one wants him. And oddly, there's also a Siamese Cat, played by Ching Yeh, and a guy in a tuxedo, played by Harry Rigby, who gets a huge laugh when he says, "I don't even know why I'm here. I'm a penguin."

In a side plot, the so-called "Honky Killer" is killing white couples, because it's "just too safe out there." Turns out the Honky Killer is a white guy, which strikes me as an absurdist comment about how, when this film was made in the 1970, racial motivations were frequently tied to newsworthy events. Come to think of it, not much has changed.

The subplot never directly connects to the dogs in the pound, although it takes place in the same city. It did, however, open the film to scenes outside the pound itself.

Another way the film is opened up is through fantasy sequences, such as a dream sequence where the keeper lets all the dogs go, and they run joyously through the streets. In another dream sequence, they frolic around the pen wearing ballet costumes and mugging for the camera, just like a musical number from The Monkees, except that the song is far more obscene.

Despite the premise, the movie is not as depressing as one might expect. Rather than a canine version of Cats, where each cat tells its whimsical or tragic story, the stories come out through fractured conversation, interspersed with humor and slapstick.

When the animals finally meet their fate, it's not through a needle but by a mass gassing. This is prefaced by a dream sequence where little Allyson Downey, as an angel, leads them through misty pathways through the gate to heaven. So when the smoky gas appears, the scene seems less tragic, more like a transition to the afterlife.