Lassie Come Home

A mining family in Yorkshire is forced by poverty to sell their dog Lassie to a duke. The dog is taken to the north of Scotland, escapes, and walks hundreds of miles home alone. Fred M. Wilcox adapted Eric Knight's novel and tells it not as a children's fable but as a family drama built on poverty and necessity. Roddy McDowall plays the boy and Elizabeth Taylor, in one of her early roles, the duke's granddaughter. The best-known detail is the dog: Lassie was played not by a female but by a male collie named Pal, and the part made him the star of the films that followed. The Technicolor photography and the landscape work are lavish for the period. Who it is for: viewers who like classic family films and animal stories. Who it is not for: anyone who dislikes emotional manipulation.