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Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood

April 03, 2023

Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood is a 1976 American comedy film directed by Michael Winner, and starring Bruce Dern, Madeline Kahn, Teri Garr and Art Carney. Spoofing the craze surrounding Rin Tin Tin, the film is notable for the large number of cameo appearances by actors and actresses from Hollywood's golden age[3][4] many of whom had been employees of Paramount Pictures, the film's distributor.

Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood
Theatrical release poster
Directed byMichael Winner
Written byArnold Schulman
Cy Howard
Produced byDavid V. Picker
Arnold Schulman
Michael Winner
StarringBruce Dern
Madeline Kahn
Art Carney
Phil Silvers
Teri Garr
Ron Leibman
CinematographyRichard H. Kline
Edited byBernard Gribble
Music byNeal Hefti
Distributed byParamount Pictures
Release date
  • May 26, 1976 (1976-05-26)
Running time
92 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$3 million[1]
Box office$1.2 million[2]

Plot

After escaping the dog pound, a German Shepherd links up with a budding actress and a wannabe film screenwriter, and becomes a Hollywood star.

Cast

Starring

Larger cameos

Brief cameo appearances

Production

The film was originally called A Bark is Born and was based on the career of Rin Tin Tin. The story was written by Cy Howard in 1971. He hired Arnold Schulmann to write the script. It was developed by David Picker at Warner Bros who requested the title be changed so as to not clash with their upcoming version of A Star is Born. Picker changed it to Won Ton Ton the Dog that Saved Warner Bros.[1]

Warner Bros decided not to make the film. Picker took the script with him when he moved to Paramount, causing the title to be changed.[5] The owners of Rin Tin Tin sued the producers, causing Picker to insist his dog was completely fictional.[6]

Lily Tomlin was offered the female lead but wanted her partner Jane Wagner to rewrite the script. Director Michael Winner said Tomlin "felt we mustn't go for the laugh. Well, in a comedy laughs don't hurt."[1] Tomlin left the project. Picker says Bette Midler wanted to make the film "but we couldn't come to an arrangement." Eventually Madeline Kahn was cast.[1]

Dern said he accepted the lead "because I've never been in a hit. This is a very funny movie."[1]

Filming started in August 1975.[5] Karl Miller was in charge of the dog.[7]

Arnold Schulman, credited as a writer and producer, later said:

Not only did David Picker, the producer, have every word of the script rewritten, but he hired Michael Winner, the director of all the Charles Bronson Death Wish pictures, to "realize" the film, as the post-Cahiers du Cinéma directors like to put it. It was written by me as a satire, written by God-knows-who as a slapstick farce, and directed with all the charm and wit of a chain-saw massacre. I had nothing to do with the final picture, and on that one, I was not only listed as cowriter but also as executive producer, and I couldn't get my name off! (Laughs.)[8]

Reception

The film, which has a score of 14% on Rotten Tomatoes from 14 critics,[9] opened to negative reviews when it opened in the late spring of 1976.

Richard Eder of The New York Times declared, "What saves the movie, a jumble of good jokes and bad, sloppiness, chaos and apparently any old thing that came to hand, is Madeline Kahn ... What she has – as W. C. Fields and Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin had – is a kind of unwavering purpose at right angles to reality, a concentration that she bears, Magoolike, through all kinds of unreasonable events."[10] Arthur D. Murphy of Variety reported that "this project might have worked to a degree of whimsy. But the alchemy in the direction has turned potential cotton candy into reinforced concrete; Winner's 'Death Wish' is funnier in comparison."[11] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "Sixty guest stars can't save 'Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood' ... from its unrelentingly crass tone and steady stream of unfunny jokes. Unquestionably, the best performance is given by an appealing German shepherd named Augustus Von Schumacher, who plays Won Ton Ton."[12] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film two stars out of four and called it "a scattershot comedy that can't make up its mind whether to be 'wholesome family entertainment' or a smutty film industry in-joke. It goes both ways."[13]

John Pym of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "Michael Winner does not have Mel Brooks' frenzied gift for marshaling this sort of material; and, to make matters worse, the script attains a level of parody no higher than Ron Leibman's mincing caricature of Valentino, embellished with little more than the standard mannerisms of the familiar theatrical queen."[14] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post stated, "This tacky exercise in mock nostalgia may be added to that recent, weirdly miscalculated genre that includes 'W. C. Fields and Me', 'Gable and Lombard' and 'The Day of the Locust' ... They may be presented as uninhibited, madcap spoofs of Old Hollywood, but they tend to end up illustrating the New Hollywood at its most crass, insecure and condescending."[15]

The film was one of five reviewed in the July 16, 1976, edition of The Times of London, where David Robinson had some particularly biting criticisms of it:

And so, reluctantly, to Won Ton Ton, The Dog Who Saved Hollywood, which would have been better titled The Dog Who Savaged Hollywood. There's a case for a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Old Actors. The gimmick of Michael Winner's film is to parade a pageant of great old Hollywood names. Presumably they were persuaded to do it in the belief that the film was to be an affectionate homage to the old Hollywood. Their walk-ons suggest that they were required at the studio so briefly that there was not even time to make them up or light them, let alone explain what they were supposed to be doing; certainly aging people could hardly be filmed with less sympathy.

Indeed, you could believe that it had been done to humiliate and demean them. Yvonne de Carlo and Alice Faye are cast, or cast in, as aged secretaries, Virginia Mayo is a cleaning woman, Walter Pidgeon (and in a film like this you think of him as Walter Pidgeon and not as a character) is given one moment, hurling a stone at a dog. Carmel Myers, once the leading lady of Fairbanks, Valentino and Ramon Novarro and a star of Ben-Hur, is a walk-on.

Well, maybe they have only themselves to blame, and they have got good money for it. But the meanness is as unduckable in the treatment of the humans as in a particularly brutal (however tricked) gag of the dog, having been trained to jump through prop paper walls, hurling himself bewilderedly against real ones.

It is just a mean film (which is small recommendation for a comedy, you might think). It has a mean view of what Hollywood and its artists were and represented; it has a mean view of the achievement of the silent cinema. The audience does not have such a great time either; the film tries to conceal its deficiencies in comic ideas and comic skill by doing everything at the pace of a clockwork toy with a too-tight spring.

Vaguely pretending to be based on the real-life dog star Rin-Tin-Tin, it is particularly mean about him. He was certainly a lot more fun than this (admittedly not unlovable) counterfeit.

[...]

Just to prove how the film defames the silent cinema, there [were] currently opportunities [in London] to see the real thing. The Strong Man, even though not the best of the three films in which Frank Capra directed Harry Langdon, the elderly baby of slapstick comedy, is about a hundred times funnier than Michael Winner could ever be.[16]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e The Tale Wags the Dog: 'Won Ton Ton'--The Tale Wags the Dog Kilday, Gregg. Los Angeles Times 5 Oct 1975: o1.
  2. ^ SECOND ANNUAL GROSSES GLOSS Byron, Stuart. Film Comment; New York Vol. 13, Iss. 2, (Mar/Apr 1977): 35-37,64.
  3. ^ The New York Times
  4. ^ The New York Times
  5. ^ a b "To Rinny With Love and G Rating" Haber, Joyce. Los Angeles Times 27 Aug 1975: e10.
  6. ^ "Hollywood's hydrants will never be the same" Kerwin, Robert. Chicago Tribune 25 Jan 1976: g12.
  7. ^ "Won Ton Ton: Hot dog, handle with care" Gorner, Peter. Chicago Tribune 23 May 1976: e12.
  8. ^ McGilligan, Patrick (1997). Backstory 3: Interviews with Screenwriters of the 60s. University of California Press. p. 319.
  9. ^ Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood at Rotten Tomatoes
  10. ^ Eder, Richard (May 27, 1976). "Miss Kahn Lifts 'Won Ton Ton'". The New York Times. 30.
  11. ^ Murphy, Arthur D. (May 5, 1976). "Film Reviews: Won Ton Ton, The Dog Who Saved Hollywood". Variety. 18.
  12. ^ Thomas, Kevin (May 26, 1976). "Hollywood in 'Won' Dimension". Los Angeles Times. Part IV, p. 1.
  13. ^ Siskel, Gene (May 31, 1976). "'Won Ton Ton' can't save bad script". Chicago Tribune. Section 2, p. 9.
  14. ^ Pym, John (August 1976). "Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 43 (511): 177.
  15. ^ Arnold, Gary (May 28, 1976). "'Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood'". The Washington Post. B9.
  16. ^ Robinson, David (16 July 1976). "Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm". The Times. 13.

External links

  • Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood at IMDb  
  • Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood at the TCM Movie Database  
  • Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood at Rotten Tomatoes  

April 03, 2023
saved, hollywood, 1976, american, comedy, film, directed, michael, winner, starring, bruce, dern, madeline, kahn, teri, garr, carney, spoofing, craze, surrounding, film, notable, large, number, cameo, appearances, actors, actresses, from, hollywood, golden, ma. Won Ton Ton the Dog Who Saved Hollywood is a 1976 American comedy film directed by Michael Winner and starring Bruce Dern Madeline Kahn Teri Garr and Art Carney Spoofing the craze surrounding Rin Tin Tin the film is notable for the large number of cameo appearances by actors and actresses from Hollywood s golden age 3 4 many of whom had been employees of Paramount Pictures the film s distributor Won Ton Ton the Dog Who Saved HollywoodTheatrical release posterDirected byMichael WinnerWritten byArnold SchulmanCy HowardProduced byDavid V PickerArnold SchulmanMichael WinnerStarringBruce DernMadeline KahnArt CarneyPhil SilversTeri GarrRon LeibmanCinematographyRichard H KlineEdited byBernard GribbleMusic byNeal HeftiDistributed byParamount PicturesRelease dateMay 26 1976 1976 05 26 Running time92 minutesCountryUnited StatesLanguageEnglishBudget 3 million 1 Box office 1 2 million 2 Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Production 4 Reception 5 References 6 External linksPlot EditAfter escaping the dog pound a German Shepherd links up with a budding actress and a wannabe film screenwriter and becomes a Hollywood star Cast EditStarring Bruce Dern as Grayson Potchuck Madeline Kahn as Estie Del Ruth Art Carney as J J Fromberg Phil Silvers as Murray Fromberg Ron Leibman as Rudy Montague Teri Garr as Fluffy Peters Ronny Graham as Mark Bennett Toni Basil as Guest at Awards Ceremony Larger cameos Dorothy Lamour as Visiting Film Star Joan Blondell as Landlady Virginia Mayo as Miss Battley Henny Youngman as Manny Farber Rory Calhoun as Phillip Hart Aldo Ray as Stubby Stebbins Ethel Merman as Hedda Parsons Nancy Walker as Mrs Fromberg Rhonda Fleming as Rhoda Flaming Dean Stockwell as Paul Lavell Dick Haymes as James Crawford Tab Hunter as David Hamilton Robert Alda as Richard Entwhistle Victor Mature as Nick Edgar Bergen as Professor Quicksand Henry Wilcoxon as Silent Film Director Alice Faye as Secretary at Gate Yvonne De Carlo as Cleaning Woman Brief cameo appearances Dennis Morgan as Tour Guide Shecky Greene as Tourist William Demarest as Studio Gatekeeper Billy Barty as Assistant Director Ricardo Montalban as Silent Film Star credited as Ricardo Montalban Jackie Coogan as Stagehand 1 Andy Devine as Priest in Dog Pound Broderick Crawford as Special Effects Man Richard Arlen as Silent Film Star 2 Jack La Rue as Silent Film Villain Gloria DeHaven as President s Girl 1 Louis Nye as Radio Interviewer Johnny Weissmuller as Stagehand 2 final film role Stepin Fetchit as Dancing Butler Ken Murray as Souvenir Salesman Rudy Vallee as Autograph Hound George Jessel as Awards Announcer Ann Miller as President s Girl 2 Eli Mintz as Tailor Fritz Feld as Rudy s Butler Edward Ashley as Second Butler Jane Connell as Waitress Janet Blair as President s Girl 3 Dennis Day as Singing Telegraph Man Mike Mazurki as Studio Guard Harry Ritz and Jimmy Ritz as Cleaning Women Jesse White as Rudy s Agent Carmel Myers as Woman Journalist Jack Carter as Male Journalist Barbara Nichols as Nick s Girl Army Archerd as Premiere MC Fernando Lamas as Premiere Male Star Zsa Zsa Gabor as Premiere Female Star Cyd Charisse as President s Girl 4 Huntz Hall as Moving Man Doodles Weaver as Man in Mexican Film Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez as Mexican Projectionist Morey Amsterdam as Custard Pie Star 1 Eddie Foy Jr as Custard Pie Star 2 Peter Lawford as Custard Pie Star 3 Patricia Morison as Star at Screening Guy Madison as Star at Screening Regis Toomey as Burlesque Stagehand Ann Rutherford as Grayson s Studio Secretary Milton Berle as Blind Man John Carradine as Drunk Keye Luke as Cook in Kitchen Walter Pidgeon as Grayson s Butler Phil Leeds as Dog Catcher 1 Cliff Norton as Dog Catcher 2 Sterling Holloway as Old Man on Bus William Benedict as Man on Bus Dorothy Gulliver as Old Woman on Bus Eddie Le Veque as Prostitute s CustomerProduction EditThe film was originally called A Bark is Born and was based on the career of Rin Tin Tin The story was written by Cy Howard in 1971 He hired Arnold Schulmann to write the script It was developed by David Picker at Warner Bros who requested the title be changed so as to not clash with their upcoming version of A Star is Born Picker changed it to Won Ton Ton the Dog that Saved Warner Bros 1 Warner Bros decided not to make the film Picker took the script with him when he moved to Paramount causing the title to be changed 5 The owners of Rin Tin Tin sued the producers causing Picker to insist his dog was completely fictional 6 Lily Tomlin was offered the female lead but wanted her partner Jane Wagner to rewrite the script Director Michael Winner said Tomlin felt we mustn t go for the laugh Well in a comedy laughs don t hurt 1 Tomlin left the project Picker says Bette Midler wanted to make the film but we couldn t come to an arrangement Eventually Madeline Kahn was cast 1 Dern said he accepted the lead because I ve never been in a hit This is a very funny movie 1 Filming started in August 1975 5 Karl Miller was in charge of the dog 7 Arnold Schulman credited as a writer and producer later said Not only did David Picker the producer have every word of the script rewritten but he hired Michael Winner the director of all the Charles Bronson Death Wish pictures to realize the film as the post Cahiers du Cinema directors like to put it It was written by me as a satire written by God knows who as a slapstick farce and directed with all the charm and wit of a chain saw massacre I had nothing to do with the final picture and on that one I was not only listed as cowriter but also as executive producer and I couldn t get my name off Laughs 8 Reception EditThe film which has a score of 14 on Rotten Tomatoes from 14 critics 9 opened to negative reviews when it opened in the late spring of 1976 Richard Eder of The New York Times declared What saves the movie a jumble of good jokes and bad sloppiness chaos and apparently any old thing that came to hand is Madeline Kahn What she has as W C Fields and Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin had is a kind of unwavering purpose at right angles to reality a concentration that she bears Magoolike through all kinds of unreasonable events 10 Arthur D Murphy of Variety reported that this project might have worked to a degree of whimsy But the alchemy in the direction has turned potential cotton candy into reinforced concrete Winner s Death Wish is funnier in comparison 11 Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times wrote Sixty guest stars can t save Won Ton Ton the Dog Who Saved Hollywood from its unrelentingly crass tone and steady stream of unfunny jokes Unquestionably the best performance is given by an appealing German shepherd named Augustus Von Schumacher who plays Won Ton Ton 12 Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film two stars out of four and called it a scattershot comedy that can t make up its mind whether to be wholesome family entertainment or a smutty film industry in joke It goes both ways 13 John Pym of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote Michael Winner does not have Mel Brooks frenzied gift for marshaling this sort of material and to make matters worse the script attains a level of parody no higher than Ron Leibman s mincing caricature of Valentino embellished with little more than the standard mannerisms of the familiar theatrical queen 14 Gary Arnold of The Washington Post stated This tacky exercise in mock nostalgia may be added to that recent weirdly miscalculated genre that includes W C Fields and Me Gable and Lombard and The Day of the Locust They may be presented as uninhibited madcap spoofs of Old Hollywood but they tend to end up illustrating the New Hollywood at its most crass insecure and condescending 15 The film was one of five reviewed in the July 16 1976 edition of The Times of London where David Robinson had some particularly biting criticisms of it And so reluctantly to Won Ton Ton The Dog Who Saved Hollywood which would have been better titled The Dog Who Savaged Hollywood There s a case for a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Old Actors The gimmick of Michael Winner s film is to parade a pageant of great old Hollywood names Presumably they were persuaded to do it in the belief that the film was to be an affectionate homage to the old Hollywood Their walk ons suggest that they were required at the studio so briefly that there was not even time to make them up or light them let alone explain what they were supposed to be doing certainly aging people could hardly be filmed with less sympathy Indeed you could believe that it had been done to humiliate and demean them Yvonne de Carlo and Alice Faye are cast or cast in as aged secretaries Virginia Mayo is a cleaning woman Walter Pidgeon and in a film like this you think of him as Walter Pidgeon and not as a character is given one moment hurling a stone at a dog Carmel Myers once the leading lady of Fairbanks Valentino and Ramon Novarro and a star of Ben Hur is a walk on Well maybe they have only themselves to blame and they have got good money for it But the meanness is as unduckable in the treatment of the humans as in a particularly brutal however tricked gag of the dog having been trained to jump through prop paper walls hurling himself bewilderedly against real ones It is just a mean film which is small recommendation for a comedy you might think It has a mean view of what Hollywood and its artists were and represented it has a mean view of the achievement of the silent cinema The audience does not have such a great time either the film tries to conceal its deficiencies in comic ideas and comic skill by doing everything at the pace of a clockwork toy with a too tight spring Vaguely pretending to be based on the real life dog star Rin Tin Tin it is particularly mean about him He was certainly a lot more fun than this admittedly not unlovable counterfeit Just to prove how the film defames the silent cinema there were currently opportunities in London to see the real thing The Strong Man even though not the best of the three films in which Frank Capra directed Harry Langdon the elderly baby of slapstick comedy is about a hundred times funnier than Michael Winner could ever be 16 References Edit a b c d e The Tale Wags the Dog Won Ton Ton The Tale Wags the Dog Kilday Gregg Los Angeles Times 5 Oct 1975 o1 SECOND ANNUAL GROSSES GLOSS Byron Stuart Film Comment New York Vol 13 Iss 2 Mar Apr 1977 35 37 64 The New York Times The New York Times a b To Rinny With Love and G Rating Haber Joyce Los Angeles Times 27 Aug 1975 e10 Hollywood s hydrants will never be the same Kerwin Robert Chicago Tribune 25 Jan 1976 g12 Won Ton Ton Hot dog handle with care Gorner Peter Chicago Tribune 23 May 1976 e12 McGilligan Patrick 1997 Backstory 3 Interviews with Screenwriters of the 60s University of California Press p 319 Won Ton Ton the Dog Who Saved Hollywood at Rotten Tomatoes Eder Richard May 27 1976 Miss Kahn Lifts Won Ton Ton The New York Times 30 Murphy Arthur D May 5 1976 Film Reviews Won Ton Ton The Dog Who Saved Hollywood Variety 18 Thomas Kevin May 26 1976 Hollywood in Won Dimension Los Angeles Times Part IV p 1 Siskel Gene May 31 1976 Won Ton Ton can t save bad script Chicago Tribune Section 2 p 9 Pym John August 1976 Won Ton Ton the Dog Who Saved Hollywood The Monthly Film Bulletin 43 511 177 Arnold Gary May 28 1976 Won Ton Ton the Dog Who Saved Hollywood The Washington Post B9 Robinson David 16 July 1976 Youth on the prow and Pleasure at the helm The Times 13 External links EditWon Ton Ton the Dog Who Saved Hollywood at IMDb Won Ton Ton the Dog Who Saved Hollywood at the TCM Movie Database Won Ton Ton the Dog Who Saved Hollywood at Rotten Tomatoes Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Won Ton Ton the Dog Who Saved Hollywood amp oldid 1145944740, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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