White Dog

In his first Hollywood movie in years, director Sam Fuller tackled the controversial subject of racism in a story about a German shepherd dog that has been trained to kill black people. Kristy McNichol plays an actress who adopts the ostensibly docile dog and uncovers its terrible history after it attacks a rapist in her home. Paramount bought the rights to Romain Gary's award-winning novel and then waited ten years before filming it, but, even then, it was never released theatrically in the US, eventually finding its way on to cable in a watered down version. Fuller turned his back on Hollywood, taking the complete version to Europe where it was hailed as a masterpiece by some critics.