Pound (1970)

Starring:

• Joe Madden
• James Green
• Mariclare Costello
• L. Errol Jaye
• Carolyn Cardwell

IMDB.com
Seeing it only once at the Uniondale Mini-Cinema, Long Island home to art films and the Rocky Horror Picture Show, all I knew was that it was on a Robert Downey Sr. double feature with the classic, Putney Swope.

What I saw was a stunning, surreal demonstration of the movie screen as a stage and the actors upon it drawing you into their world. A dog pound, occupied by stray and abandoned canines, all musing about their lives, from the primped pedigree to the run-down greyhound (a masterpiece performance by Putney Swope alumni Antonio Fargas, later to be saddled with the ludicrous role of Huggy Bear the pimp in TV's Starsky & Hutch), the Dachshund (Marshall Efron, best known for Marshall Efron's Illustrated, Simplified and Painless Sunday School TV show) to a small role of a puppy played by a very young Robert Downey Jr.

You get very caught up in their tales of joy and sorrow, even their dreams of freedom before they are utterly dashed in a tear-jerking conclusion that will have you weeping in pain and wanting to rush out to your local animal shelter and adopt a pet.

The true sadness is that this film is missing in action. Locked away for who knows what reason; legal battles, ego wars, et al. This film needs to be seen again soon, before all that remember it pass away.