Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

A Boy and His Dog Blu-ray Movie Review

Not just for dog people.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 6, 2013

Harlan Ellison is a curmudgeon of such ineluctable magnificence that he puts the lie to those who are merely cranky but who appropriate the label “curmudgeon” with an almost prideful glee. Ellison’s run ins with the powers that be are legion and justifiably famous (if not infamous), and they include several tirades against critics, including at least one incident which evidently came to physical blows. So let me just start out this review of one of Ellison’s most enduring pieces, A Boy and His Dog, by saying that Harlan Ellison is a god among men, able to do no wrong and certainly one of the smartest individuals to ever attempt—however ineffectively—to raise the collective I.Q. of Hollywood. (There, do you think he’s stopped reading yet?) I have friends who have known and worked with Mr. Ellison through the years and have been privy to a number of just downright hilarious anecdotes about this gruff but acerbically brilliant writer, but one trait of Ellison’s which seems to shine through even casual reminiscences about him is what a tireless workhorse he’s been for most of his professional career. His published works now extend into the thousands, including everything from novels to short stories to films to television, and with an oeuvre that overwhelming, it’s perhaps surprising to hear Ellison himself state that A Boy and His Dog is not only one of his favorite pieces, it’s the single piece that seems to have defined him most succinctly in the eyes of the public. (Do I dare face the Wrath of Ellison to say I first became aware of him due to the 1966 stinker The Oscar, ostensibly written by him, which I came to love due to the wonderful score by Percy Faith it contains?) This seems even more strange when one considers the fact that A Boy and His Dog was not especially successful during its brief theatrical exhibition in 1975. But the intervening years have been more than kind to the film, courtesy of repeated Art House screenings and quite a few broadcasts as well. Something else that no doubt helped spread the word about A Boy and His Dog was the subsequent mainstream success of star Don Johnson in Miami Vice, which led to a renewed interest in this early example of Johnson’s work.

A Boy and His Dog is certainly one of the oddest “love stories” ever committed to celluloid and in fact it turns into a rather bizarre triangle of sorts. In a post-Acopalyptic world of 2024, the Earth is a barren desert wasteland with tribes of half feral human begins scavenging for whatever few precious resources can be found. Vic (Don Johnson) is a young male whose interests focus mostly on sex and food, with an emphasis on the former. He is aided in his quest by his telepathic dog Blood (voiced by Tim McIntire), a hound with a nose for females who alerts Vic to their presence with the understanding that Vic will then share his food spoils with the mutt. There’s little doubt that Blood is the brains of this operation, for Vic in fact seems to be a rather simpleminded kid most of the time, living from moment to moment and relying on Blood’s wisdom to help him see the bigger picture. (Ellison reveals in the featurette included on this Blu-ray that he considers both of these characters to be opposite sides of the same coin, culled from Ellison’s own bifurcated personality.)

Vic and Blood have a few minor adventures foraging for women and meals before Vic stumbles across a beautiful young woman named Quilla June (Susanne Benton). Blood has a bad feeling about the girl, but Vic’s hormones are in charge, and after consummating their relationship, Vic has decided to follow Quilla June to the home she has revealed she’s come from: an underground community called New Topeka. Blood tries to warn Vic that no good can come from this decision, but Vic will hear nothing of it and actually abandons his furry buddy, knowing that it could spell doom for the dog, as Blood depends on a partner to feed him.

Things get rather deliriously Fellini-esque once A Boy and His Dog (or at least the boy) venture into the subterranean world. It turns out Quilla June is indeed a devious little lass, working for her imperious father (Jason Robards), who is in charge of the hilariously bizarre society that has grown like a fungus in the underground environment. All of the people wear clown makeup, and there is a precise order to things that is insisted on. A nonstop blare from loudspeakers broadcasts homilies about the correct way to live, along with recipes for various foodstuffs. Anyone caught “misbehaving” is relegated to a place known simply as The Farm, though what actually happens to these hapless folks is a good deal more sinister. Quilla and Dad have a little surprise in store for Vic, one which would seem to play directly into his wildest fantasies, but which in fact turns out to be somewhat more clinical in nature.

A Boy and His Dog is neither a traditional post-Apocalyptic fantasy nor a traditional science fiction outing, and therein lies its greatest strength. It is in fact a film about relationships, and while there’s a good deal of whimsy involved (including an infamously provocative final line that Ellison himself decried publicly), there’s also a surprisingly serious subtext to the film. Vic is an archetypal Fool, a naïf who often doesn’t seem to know which way is up (ironic, since he gets trapped underground at one point). But when push comes to shove, he realizes what’s important and makes the appropriate decision, no matter what the consequences.

A Boy and His Dog Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A Boy and His Dog is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. There's mostly good news with regard to this high definition presentation, at least when put in the context of how shoddy this film has often looked on previous home video iterations. Color and contrast are markedly improved here, though while I suspect some moderate restoration has been done here, there is quite a bit of relatively minor but extant damage to the elements, which includes quite a few specks and scratches, as well as something that appears to be minimal warping of individual frames (you can see it quite clearly in the first establishing shot of the desert, where the lower half of the frame seems to "wiggle" all of a sudden). Shadow detail is really rather good, all things considered, though things are extremely grainy throughout a lot of this presentation, something that's increased rather markedly in some of the darker sequences.

A Boy and His Dog Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

A Boy and His Dog has a lossless mono audio track delivered via DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. While this is quite shallow sounding, and is especially boxy with regard to Blood's voice (something that always plagued this film from its theatrical exhibition onward), there's surprising fullness to the score (done by Blood's voice artist Tim McIntire, and featuring keyboard work by none other than Ray Manzarek). Dialogue is very cleanly presented, and there is no appreciable damage to report. Fidelity is very good and dynamic range is fairly wide.

A Boy and His Dog Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary with Director L.Q. Jones actually also includes Los Angeles Times film critic Charles Champlin and A Boy and His Dog's cinematographer John Arthur Morrill. This is the same commentary that was on the previously released DVD and it's quite good, though for some tastes, Jones' continued self-deprecation actually gets to be a bit annoying after a while, especially when it starts to seem he's putting himself down just so "Chuck" Champlin can tell him what a great job he did. But overall this is a nice piece of reminiscing full of both technical and anecdotal data.


• In Conversation: Director L.Q. Jones and Writer Harlan Ellison (1080p; 51:03). If watch no other supplemental feature on a Blu-ray this year, watch this one. These two icons, who have a long and somewhat tempestuous history between them, have smoked the figurative peace pipe and give a wonderfully funny, acerbic and insightful look back on how the film came to be and some of the troubles it engendered between the two. Ellison is just laugh out loud hilarious quite a bit of the time. The two more or less put their long simmering dispute about the film's final line to bed in this piece.


• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 1:04)


• Radio Spots (4:38)

A Boy and His Dog Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I first saw A Boy and His Dog years ago at my college's weekly movie showing, in a half empty auditorium where no one else seemed to be getting the film's often sly sense of humor (in other words, I was the only one laughing). The film has always been an odd duck of sorts (not to mix creature metaphors, considering its canine focus), and that may confuse some viewers who come to it expecting a kind of junior Mad Max or slightly futuristic Marley & Me. Ellison's novella has been rather smartly adapted here (despite the author's sniping at a few of Jones' approaches), and A Boy and His Dog is both unique and uniquely satisfying. This new Blu-ray features vastly improved video and good audio, and it comes with good supplements, including an absolutely "must see" featurette with Ellison and Jones. Highly recommended.