We all love dogs and if we don't, we should. And the people that started the movie industry pretty much knew that almost from the beginning. Did you know that, arguably the first movie to have a canine star, Blair in Rescued by Rover, was released in nineteen oh five. I'm Patty Steele. Guess what it seems? Blair's act was stolen decades later by none other than Lassie. That's next
on the backstory. The backstory is back. There's something so organically attractive about little children and dogs, and when you put them together, it can be magic. Filmmakers seem to pick up on this from the very beginning of Silent Film. In nineteen oh five, the British director Lewis Fitzhaman capitalized on what he thought would be a magic combo. One year old Barbara Hepworth starred as kidnapped baby and the real Hepworth family dog Blair stole the show as Rover.
Little Barbara's real life parents, Cecil and Margaret Hepworth plays mother and father, but they got very little attention even though they were big film people. The plot goes that the nanny was taking baby for a stroll in her carriage, and as she walked through the park, a gypsy woman approached asking for money. The nanny said no way and kept walking, but then she got distracted by a young
soldier and started talking to him. That's when the beggar woman snuck up and snatched the baby from the carriage. In the next scene, the nanny goes home and confesses to the mother that baby has been lost. Aha, Rover, here's all this, and then Lassie esk jumps through the window, races down the street, around a corner, and across a river.
The pup finds its way to a bad part of town and then barges through every door until he traces the scent of baby and runs up the stairs in an attic the beggar woman is taking off baby's clothing. Rover barks, but is dispatched by the woman, then again creating the Lassie playbook. Rover runs home and he goes nuts in front of the dad father follows him down the street, across the river and into the doorway of
the house where baby is being held. She's rescued, unharmed and brought home, with Rover, of course, getting a lot of attention for his rescue. That seven minute movie was a sensation. Believe it or not, it cost about forty bucks to make and help turn movie making into a storytelling medium rather than just a scientific novelty. For the director, Lewis Fitzhayman, this was his biggest film of the four
hundred that he made. He had other animal flicks such as Dog Outwits the Kidnappers, which is kind of based on the Rover movie, but Rover was his tour deiforce. He did manage to sell four hundred copies of the film for about ten bucks apiece, so he did make a few bucks, but Blair, as Rover the Dog became a household name. He's considered the world's first canine film star.
This was the first appearance of a dog in a narrative based film, and believe it or not, that movie made the pretty uncommon name of Rover into one of the most popular names for dogs in the first half of the twentieth century. Blair went on to make a number of other films over the next five years, but was first and foremost the Hepworth Family Dog. Another early canine star was Shep. He starred in an eleven minute film that was a huge critical hit in nineteen fourteen.
It was called A Dog's Love and it was very emotional. Again, the dog was the star. It was about a dog who loses his best friend, a small girl whose killed when she's hit by a car. The movie focuses on the dog's emotions in dealing with his loss. Audiences love this flick because of its universally appealing theme. The description says, the movie focuses on a poor, little rich girl who has no one to play with. You see Baby Helen with her doll looking out the window while other children play.
Baby Helen sets up a tea party in the yard by herself and the neighbor's dog. Shep comes out to play. She invites him to the tea party to share a muffin. A week later, four year old Helen is sent out on an errand. Not sure who sends a four year old on an errand, but as she crosses the street, she's hit by a passing car. SHEP races to her rescue and then runs for the parents, but it's too late.
He's devastated. She's died. Then, in one of the earliest and best uses of double exposure, Helen's ghost comes back and guides Shep to her her grave, where he then brings flowers and lays by her gravestone. People were beside themselves with this story, and again it helped transition film into a theatrical event that made people feel something that told a real story. There's a final screen title in that movie that says, don't cry, It's only make believe,
showing Helen holding flowers and leaning against Shep. It's a reminder of little kids in the audience that it was all simply a story. Critics loved it. The Chicago Tribune wrote two more attractive artists never collaborated in a single production than This Star Baby and This Star Dog. The picture is a miniature masterpiece. Just a few years later, W. C. Fields, with both of these flicks in mind, was quoted as saying, never make a movie with a kid or a dog.
They always steal the show. Hope you like the backstory with Patty Steele. Please leave a review. I'd love it if you'd subscribe or follow for free to get new episodes delivered automatically, and feel free to DM me if you have a story you'd like me to cover On Facebook, It's Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis Durand Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer
is Doug Fraser. Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history you didn't know you needed to know.