A Boy and His Dog

Good lord! Reading up on this I learned that my friend Harlan Ellison (who wrote the story this is based on) was going to write the screenplay … but he got writer’s block! Writer’s block? Harlan? This is the man who has written stories while sitting in bookstore windows. I find it hard to believe, but I’m not going to call Harlan up and ask him if it’s true.

Be that as it may, it was written by L.Q. Jones, a man better known for his roles as a supporting player in westerns. (He is from Beaumont, Texas, about five miles from my home town.) He did a good job. The movie is miles better than the post-apocalypse movies that came before it. Don Johnson is a loner trying to survive in a desert world, with the aid of his faithful companion, a telepathic dog named Blood. Blood is much smarter than anyone else in the movie. The ending is startling, and I can’t reveal it here, but let’s just say the boy has to make a decision as to who lives and who dies, and he makes the practical one.