User reviews

This low-budget movie has the look of a TV picture with such a simplistic drama of a boy and his dog. Shot in black and white with cheap sets and even less competent direction than a children's show of the time. The script is clunky and unnatural just like events during the movie such as the foster father sending his older son to disarm the troubled child who is guarded by a dangerous German Shepherd. Actually, thoroughly corny just like the rest of the plot involving murder, child trauma, and violence. The orphan boy, Pip, carries the movie as he appears in almost every scene and the boy actor (Roger Mobley) does a good job of acting sullen and angry at the world and everyone in it except his new four-legged friend. It was good to see Harry Dean Stanton in a very early film for him looking the same as he always did. The movie is a turkey in the end.

The story follows an orphan (Mobley) who goes to live on a ranch. The boy is nothing but trouble until he befriends a wounded dog. The dog has found a gun, a murder weapon, and soon the boy and dog are being pursued by the killer. The dog, a German Shepherd, is named King.

I'm sure in its conception A Dog's Best Friend might have looked like a nice boy and dog story. But when it actually got made it really doesn't come off that good.

A sullen young Roger Mobley making his big screen debut is a foster child for Bill Williams and his wife Marcia Henderson. He befriends a wild German Shepherd and discovers the dog has a .38 caliber pistol in its possession as well.

At the same time an old miser hermit was found shot to death and his hoard of cash taken. The hermit was known to have a killer dog around for protection though it didn't do him that much good. The dog did however get a piece of one of the two robbers in this case Harry Dean Stanton in an early film for him.

All I can say is considering what the other robber did for a living, this could have and should have been a much better thought out crime. Stanton does give his partner up as he's about to lose an arm.

As for Mobley and the dog in real life after what he pulled he would have been whisked into juvenile prison so fast. See what he does and you'll agree.

One curious thing about A Dog's Best Friend is the presence of both Roger Mobley and Jimmy Baird who were regulars on the Fury TV show though not at the same time.

A Dog's Best Friend is one shoddy film with most of the players in a lot better films.

I am the Terry Ann Ross that was in that film. I don't think I have ever seen it, or if I did, I was so young I forgot. If anyone knows how I can get a copy of it, I would most appreciate it. I was in several other movies, that I would love to see as well, (I just ordered a copy of Cry Terror). I am not sure this is the format to ask about something like this, as I am supposed to be rating the movie, but thought I would try. Thanks! I have to fill up 10 lines and really am not sure what else to say, other than thanks in advance for any info. Other movies would be All Mine to Give, The Trouble with Eunice.

Terry Rossworn, Terry Ann Ross