A man and his dog. The subject of hundreds of stories of loyalty and friendship and love, from Albert Payson Terhune’s “Lad, a Dog,” and John Steinbeck’s “Travels With Charley,” to the Welsh legend of Gelert, Prince Llewelyn’s hound, killed in a tragic error and memorialized in the little Welsh town of Beddgelert.
“My Dog Tulip,” an animated feature by the husband-and-wife team of Paul and Sandra Fierlinger, is a painfully delightful story of a reclusive English author, J. R. Ackerley, and the dog with whom he spent 15 years, an Alsatian bitch named Queenie who later received the movie name of Tulip for some obscure reason. It’s part of the St. Louis International Film Festival and will be screened at the Hi-Pointe Theatre today at 1 p.m., tomorrow at 5.
The animation is whimsical and delightful, though the Fierlingers’ women resemble those drawn by James Thurber. The story is less whimsical, since Ackerley takes constant notice of Tulip’s excretory habits and the cleanup thereof, and also is concerned about her sex life. Given a man who is something of a fuddy-duddy, his discussion of her “marriage” is a little on the ludicrous side.
But the Fierlingers are extremely talented, and realistic, so anyone who has owned a dog and accompanied it on its growing-up process will understand and be sympathetic.
My Dog Tulip plays at the Hi-Pointe Theatre today (Nov. 13) at 1 p.m., tomorrow (Nov. 14) at 5 p.m.
—Joe