The most famous dog in Connecticut history becomes an action daredevil with the release of “Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero.” The animated fact-based movie tells of the New Haven pup who went to World War I with a division of soldiers and became a plucky little lifesaver. It is a charming retelling of the story of an uncommonly devoted dog and a good introductory lesson about the War to End All Wars.
Richard Lanni’s film is less satisfying in its depiction of its human subjects. Their computer-generated animated faces are uniformly flat and emotionless. Still, the story is about the dog, not the doughboys. This pooch — the real one and the animated one — is too lovable to resist.
The true story of Stubby began in 1917, when the stray pup befriended a soldier preparing for the war, Robert Conroy of New Britain. Conroy took him to France, where Stubby participated in 17 battles until the war ended, sniffing out gas attacks, warning of incoming shells, protecting wounded men, killing rats in the trenches, capturing a German soldier and providing therapy-dog comfort to his brothers-in-arms.
The movie fudges with some facts to make Stubby’s adventures more cinematic. Instead of Conroy smuggling him onto the transport, Stubby escapes camp and chases down the train and the ship. Stubby meets Gen. George Patton and takes a ceremonial ride perched on the top of a tank, like a living hood ornament. Most prominently, the scene showing Stubby promoted to sergeant never happened.
With the war, the film sticks with reality. Battles, bombed-out villages, gunfire and gas attacks are vivid and scarier than one would expect in a kids’ movie. A scene in which a village is targeted by mustard gas drives home the terror of chemical warfare, as the poisoned cloud envelops the town, seeping under the doors. The final battle, on the morning the Armistice was signed, deftly illustrates the absurdity of war.
The mood is lightened at all times by Stubby. The adorably animated hound isn’t one of those movie dogs whose exploits suspend disbelief. When not doing his wartime duties, Stubby is just a dog: sniffing for food, catching balls, knocking things over, digging holes, whining to play, jumping on sleeping men’s chests, spinning in a circle before sleep. The one delve into infantile humor is about a dog acting like a dog: an officer tells the soldiers “you could all learn something from him,” as Stubby licks his own crotch.
The faces of the humans are like identical stiff marionettes, the French soldiers different from Americans only due to facial hair. Conroy’s distress at being injured seems no greater than his annoyance at being woken up early. When all put on identical gas masks, it barely makes a difference. By contrast, the backgrounds of the ocean, French countryside, villages, military camps, bombed towns and the New Haven skyline are so detailed as to be almost painterly.
Several segments – narrated by Helena Bonham Carter – show battlefields, tanks and troops in movement and are animated in a 2D style modeled after the aesthetics of recruiting and propaganda posters of that era. These segments effectively set the story in historical context.
The tale’s Connecticut focus is always front and center. The battle of Seicheprey, when 81 Connecticut men died, 400 were injured and 150 were captured, is recounted in detail. The Hartford Courant is featured as the newspaper of record in a few scenes. And when Conroy tells a friend “I worked in a builder’s hardware selling screws and nails. It’s not a great job but it’s home,” could anything sound more New Britain?
SGT. STUBBY: AN AMERICAN HERO is a Fun Academy release, 85 minutes and is rated PG for war action and some thematic elements. It opens nationwide in wide release April 13.
