The dogs are on the loose
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The dogs are on the loose |
| Original title | The Plague Dogs |
| Country of production | United Kingdom |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1982 |
| length | 103 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Martin Rosen |
| script | Martin Rosen |
| production | Martin Rosen |
| music | Patrick Gleeson |
| cut | Richard Harkness |
The Plague Dogs is a British animated film from the year 1982 by director Martin Rosen , according to the 1977 novel, The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams . It is about two dogs who escape from an animal testing laboratory and try to find a new home. The film was released in (West) German cinemas on October 21, 1982.
action
The Labrador Wuff and the Terrier Snitter live in a research institute in the English Lake District , where both are cruelly abused and tortured for research purposes. One night, Snitter notices that the door to Wuff's cage has not been completely closed, and he alerts him. That way, both dogs can escape from the lab. In the wild, Snitter dreams of a new master, while Wuff is convinced that all human beings are cruel. They try to survive in the wild but soon discover that they have been weaned from freedom through experiments in the laboratory. Fortunately, shortly afterwards the two meet a fox who teaches them how to survive in the wild. Meanwhile, a reporter spreads the news that the two dogs carry the bubonic plague pathogen . This false report starts a hunt for the dogs. At the end of the film, tired of the constant flight, they swim out to an island at sea. As their strength dwindled, it appeared that they were drowning. The existence of the island also remains more than questionable and at best a mirage , as they swim in the fog . The end remains open.
Voice actor
| role | English speaker | German speaker |
|---|---|---|
| Snitter | John Hurt | Joachim Tennstedt |
| Woof (in the original: Rowf) | Christopher Benjamin | Helmut Krauss |
| Dr. Robert Boycott | Nigel Hawthorne | Friedrich W. Building School |
| Dr. Stephen Powell | Bernard Hepton | Wolfgang number |
| Radio presenter | Helmut Gauss | |
| butcher | Norbert Langer | |
| Jack | Gerd Duwner | |
| Don (German Shepherd) | John Bennett | Jochen Schröder |
| Wag (German Shepherd) | Warren Mitchell | Wolfgang Völz |
| Fox | James Bolam | Klaus Jepsen |
| Dennis Williamson | John Franklyn-Robbins | Alexander Duke |
| Reporter Steve | Lothar Hinze | |
| Editor-in-chief | Bill Maynard | Gerd Duwner |
| Lynn Driver | Penelope Lee | Anita Lochner |
| Eckland | Eberhard Prüter | |
| Politician | Jochen Schröder | |
| major | Patrick Stewart | Christian Rode |
| sergeant | Philip Locke | Wolfgang Pampel |
effect
The film is a cartoon, but even more so than Watership Down, it is not suitable for children. The atmosphere of the film is consistently sad and gloomy. Just like the novel The Dogs of the Black Death , the film criticizes the purpose of animal testing and calls for animals to be treated more respectfully.
criticism
"Martin Rosen ('Watership Down') confirms his class as a director."
“With melancholy images, subtly, without shock effects, the remarkable cartoon tells the story of a great failure and a hopeless struggle for survival against the power of people and their violence against nature. The behavior of the tortured dogs is as realistic as their drawn environment, with the people typically only appearing as shadows. "
publication
The film was released on DVD and VHS. For the German market, however, the DVD was only available in the heavily shortened version of 82 minutes. The uncut version was only shown in the cinema and distributed on VHS. In the cinema, the film was released from 6 onwards, only in stores was the release increased to "12+". The unabridged version will first appear on DVD in German stores on February 15, 2019.
literature
- Richard Adams : The Dogs of the Black Death . Novel . (Original title: The Plague Dogs ). German by Mechtild Sandberg . New edition (2nd edition). Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main and Berlin 1994, 442 pages, ISBN 3-548-23209-4
Web links
- The Plague Dogs in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The dogs are on the loose in the online film database
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for The dogs are going . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , November 2009 (PDF; test number: 53 435 V).
- ↑ The dogs are loose .
- ↑ The dogs are on the loose in the lexicon of international films .
- ↑ The Plague Dogs - Remastered Edition. In: pidax-film.de. Retrieved November 28, 2018.