Kristy McNichol is 63 years old today. She was born on 11 September 1962.
I know her from the ABC drama, Family. I loved that show even though I was very young. And it wasn’t just because I had a crush on McNichol. (I found out years later that she was a lesbian. This was not a surprise. The vast majority of the women I have crushes on turn out to be lesbians. I’m not sure what that says about me. If you have any thoughts, please keep them to yourselves!)
But today, Kristy McNichol is important to me for one thing. She starred in one of Samuel Fuller’s last, and best films, White Dog. It’s a remarkable film even apart from its politics. But it is a Fuller film, so it definitely has politics. And those politics are dark. It’s anti-racist. But it also makes the argument that once society creates a bigot, there is no cure.
McNichol plays Julie, a young actor. She hits a dog with her car, saves it, and adopts it. But she learns that the White Shepherd has been tried to attack Black people. So she hires some people to cure the dog.
Curtis Hanson (director of LA Confidential) wrote the original screenplay based on Romain Gary’s novel. Samuel Fuller then changed the screenplay to make the dog trainer a positive character and to provide the dark ending. Various Black organizations criticized the idea of the film and Paramount pulled the film from distribution in the US.
As a result, few people have seen the film. And they should! Samuel Fuller is one of the best film directors of the 20th century. But most viewers don’t know more than Shock Corridor. Psychotronic fans should really check him out because he made great genre films with far more skill than most.
Oh, and happy birthday, Kristy McNichol!
Kristy McNichol via Wikimedia. It is in the public domain.
