The Plague Dogs (film)

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This article is about the 1982 animated film. For the novel, see The Plague Dogs.

The Plague Dogs
Directed by	Martin Rosen
Starring	John Hurt Christopher Benjamin James Bolam Nigel Hawthorne Warren Mitchell Bernard Hepton Brian Sterner Penelope Lee Geoffrey Mathews Barbera Leigh-Hunt John Bennett Warren Mitchell John Franklyn-Robbins Bill Maynard Malcolm Terris Judy Geeson
Music by	Patrick Gleeson
Distributed by	Nepenthe Productions
Running time	99 min (82 for cut version)
Language	English
IMDb profile

The Plague Dogs is a 1982 animated film based on the 1977 novel by Richard Adams. The film was written for screen, directed and produced by Martin Rosen, who also directed Watership Down, the film version of another novel by Adams.

The film's story is centered on two dogs named Rowf and Snitter, who escape from a research laboratory in Great Britain. In the process of telling the story, the film highlights the cruelty of performing vivisection and animal research for its own sake (though Martin Rosen said that this was not an anti-vivisection film, but an adventure), an idea that was only recently coming to public attention during the 1960s and 1970s.

The gospel-esque theme song, Time and Tide, was composed and sung by Alan Price.

1 Plot
2 Edited versions
3 References
4 External links

[edit] Plot

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Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Rowf (a labrador-mix) and Snitter (a smooth fox terrier) are two of many dogs used for experimental purposes at an Animal Research facility in the Lake District. Rowf is the subject of a "survival endurance test" that involves placing a rock in his stomach and then forcing him to swim in a tank of water until he almost drowns. Snitter's brain was operated on to confuse the subjective with the objective in his mind.

One night a careless janitor does not latch Rowf's enclosure door properly. Snitter manages to sneak under a gap in the wire from his kennel next door as he has something to tell Rowf. In the background an anguished dog howls noisily. Annoyed at the noise, Rowf leaps forward, pushing his unlatched door open, frightening Rowf and causing him to slink back into his kennel. Snitter remembers that he was going to inform Rowf about the unfastened door and he encourages a reluctant Rowf to escape with him. The two dogs begin to explore the laboratory, ending up in an incinerator. They sleep there, and Snitter dreams about his master, who was killed by a lorry as he ran into the road to push Snitter to safety. Later, the dogs are disturbed by the corpse of a small dog being thrown into the incinerator. This spurs them onwards and they escape just as the incinerator is activated.

Snitter is confused by the vast countryside before him. He remembers roads, shops and people and surrounding him are mountains and fields. Rowf says that the "whitecoats" (the laboratory workers) must have changed it. The two dogs then set off to look for a master. Snitter complains of the "flies" in his head - a result of the operation.

The next morning they come across a village named Coniston. They enter a shop to try and find food but are scared away as one of the shopkeepers has a knife. They carry on their journey and cross a road. Snitter, confused as his master was killed on a road, has a seizure. A car drives by and stops, concerned about Snitter's welfare. As the two men from the car try to lift Snitter into the back of their car Rowf leaps up and growls at them. The men drop Snitter and the two dogs escape. Rowf doesn't have the trust of men that Snitter has.

The two dogs happen upon two sheepdogs herding sheep (referred to as "yows" by the sheepdogs - a traditional word from the Furness, South Cumbria area meaning "ewe/female sheep") for their master. Snitter confuses this for a game of fetch, reasoning that the sheep must be what the farmer uses instead of sticks. Wanting to impress the master, Snitter and Rowf play "fetch" with the sheep, chasing them up and down the fell, until they are confronted by the sheepdogs. Snitter and Rowf decide that it is best to leave.

That evening the two dogs come across a stone circle. They discuss what to do next, and Rowf says that they should become real, wild animals and live by their teeth. That night the two dogs kill a sheep and begin to eat it, but becomae anxious as it belongs to the farmer they saw earlier, and leave. As the two dogs walk we hear two laboratory workers discussing Rowf and Snitter's escape and whether or not they entered Dr. Goodner's section of the laboratory.

Rowf is tired from taking down the sheep and his leg hurts. He lies down, and Snitter goes ahead to find shelter. He does and comes back to get Rowf to follow him. At the place Snitter has found they meet the Tod, a fox who offers to help them in return for a share of what Rowf and Snitter kill.

The next morning Rowf, Snitter and the Tod hunt some sheep. The Tod and Rowf manage to drive a sheep to the cliff edge, where Snitter barks at it to scare it into falling. During the hunt Snitter loses the green dressing on his head, showing the scar from the operation.

That night some farmers are discussing the sheep killings at a pub called The Crown. They come to the conclusion that a dog is killing their sheep. Rowf then makes the mistake of killing a sheep out in the open where the farmer patrols and the Tod is infuriated. Frightened that the farmer will come for him too, the Tod leaves.

Some of the farmers assemble with guns and hounds to hunt the sheep killing dog and kill it. The Tod sees this and warns Rowf and Snitter, but not before taking a little of the sheep meat that Rowf was keeping. The Tod then leads the two dogs down an abandoned mine shaft and they manage to avoid the hunting party. As they go on to an old World War II outpost, we hear the farmers talking about them, and how the animal research laboratory is controlled by the government, thus making the sheep killing dogs the government's responsibility. One of the farmers, Williamson, phones the research laboratory. Meanwhile, the Tod, Rowf and Snitter kill another sheep.

That night, Snitter goes wandering. In the morning he is spotted by a farmer, but the farmer does not suspect that a small dog could be a sheep killer, and instead calls Snitter to him. Snitter is slow to respond but eventually happily jumps up at the farmer, accidentally pushing down the trigger of the farmer's gun and shooting the man in the face. Snitter, terrified, runs away. Rowf, concerned for Snitter's safety, goes to look for him. He is shot at by the farmers, but they miss. That night Rowf stands atop a mountain and howls mournfully.

Two days later Rowf finds Snitter in an old shed. Snitter says that the "grass" and "stones" in his head were very loud like a strong wind. The man then called to him and he was on a road, like the time when Snitter's master was killed. Then "everything smashed to pieces" like when Snitter's master was struck by the lorry. Snitter believes that these bad things are coming from his head. That night the two dogs leave the shed and we hear some reporters talking about reporting on their escape. The reporters send a journalist up to where the dogs are that day.

Snitter and Rowf, desperate for food, raid some dustbins next to a house. The owners of the house come out and shoo them away, but they don't consider Snitter a threat and lock him in a shed to await the police. Snitter begins to dream and the inside of the shed becomes the inside of his master's house. Snitter sees his master sitting in a chair by the fire and goes to lie down beside him. Meanwhile, Rowf runs off to enlist the help of the Tod in rescuing Snitter. The two return to the shed, only to find that the police have arrived and that Snitter is confused by his dream world and wants to stay there. The dream begins to flicker from Snitter's master house and back to the shed as the Tod grabs Snitter by the collar and drags him out underneath a gap in the door. A man manages to grab Snitter's leg and pull him back, but Rowf bites the man's arm and the two dogs and the Tod escape.

The next scene is at a petrol station. A small brown dog runs around as two women talk about Rowf and Snitter rummaging through the bins and how Snitter escaped from the shed. A man named Mr. Powell is given a lift into Coniston by Lynn Driver. Mr. Powell is from the animal research laboratory and talks to Lynn about the experiments that were conducted on the dogs. Lynn Driver is actually a journalist, and she later broadcasts a report about Rowf and Snitter, which is seen on a television in a local pub. Two farmers are angry that the dogs are not blamed for the death of the man that Snitter shot, as the police won't respond and the farmers are likely to lose more sheep.

The dogs and the Tod come to the stone circle that the dogs found when they first escaped. Snitter has a turn and says that all he has to do is drown or be hit by a truck, and the sky will fall and all of the men will die. The Tod says that the dogs should stick with him otherwise they'll all die.

One of the laboratory workers phones a professional marksman named Mr. Ackland. The laboratory worker wants Mr. Ackland to find and shoot the sheep-worrying dogs. Mr. Ackland agrees. The Tod, Rowf and Snitter stand on a cliff and see the ocean in the distance. Mr. Ackland comes across the old shed where they stayed.

Rowf, Snitter and The Tod look out towards the ocean in the distance

The Tod, Rowf and Snitter find a farmhouse. Mr. Powell is inside talking to someone else. Mr. Powell didn't know that Lynn Driver was a reporter. However, he didn't say anything about how Mr. Goodman was working with bubonic plague. The Tod comes across a nest of chicken eggs and eats them all. He returns to Rowf and Snitter to tell them that there are people in the house, but Rowf is angry that the Tod ate all of the eggs for himself and chases the Tod into some ferns. The Tod manages to escape over a wall. Rowf decides that he's done with the Tod and goes to the farmhouse to get a chicken from the nearby coop. Snitter follows. The two manage to break into the coop and take a hen, but as they leave, the farmhouse door opens and they are spotted by the inhabitants. The man raises his gun, but the woman intervenes and says that the dogs have come from the research station and may have the plague. The people retreat and leave Rowf and Snitter to take the chicken. Two men, possibly government workers, are heard talking about the media and how they may make light of the plague situation.

Rowf and Snitter rest in an abandoned farmhouse, and awake to find that it has snowed overnight. They believe that the whitecoats have sent the snow to make it too cold for the dogs to live. Also, the dogs' tracks are visible in the snow, so the whitecoats will know where they've been. But Rowf points out that the falling snow covers up their tracks.

Rowf and Snitter go up onto the fell to look for sheep and come across the farmer and one of the sheepdogs that confronted them. The sheepdog doesn't remember them and the three talk for a while. Rowf asks where the sheep have gone and the sheepdog tells them that no sheep are up on the fell when it snows. Rowf and Snitter now have no food.

Rowf and Snitter move on but there is no falling snow to cover their tracks. Mr. Ackland discovers the tracks and follows them, walking up a cliff nearby to get a clearer shot at the dogs. The Tod follows him however. Rowf and Snitter stop to rest and Snitter begins to talk about death. Mr. Ackland raises his gun and aims it at Rowf, but the Tod snarls and distracts him. The bullet misses Rowf's head and breaks his green collar, and Mr. Ackland loses his footing and falls to his death. The two dogs, desperate for food, cautiously advance and eat the man's corpse (this scene is only ever briefly mentioned by a soldier in the cut version of the film).

As the dogs journey across the countryside with the Tod we hear Lynn Driver talking to one of the laboratory workers about the risk of the dogs carrying bubonic plague. The laboratory worker is hesitant to release too much information and receives a phonecall about a green collar being found. We then hear members of parliament discussing the problem of the dogs being possible carriers of the plague. The secretary of defence sends the army after Rowf and Snitter, hoping that the army will find and kill the dogs. One of the MPs brings up the cruelty of experimenting on animals but is dismissed.

The dogs and the Tod are almost trapped, but the Tod says that if they get across the valley then they will be safe. Snitter notices the RAF helicopters circling above and believes them to be the "flies" from his head. The Tod goes ahead to scout out the land and is startled by the amount of men. He leads Rowf and Snitter across the valley and they are followed by a helicopter. The Tod, realizing that the dogs won't get across safely, runs out to distract the army's dogs that have been sent after them, allowing Rowf and Snitter to slip by unnoticed. Rowf and Snitter come across the Ravenglass & Eskdale Narrow Gauge Railway and slip aboard a carriage.

The Tod keeps the dogs distracted but is injured. Snitter howls, alerting the army to where he is, so the Tod makes one last ditch effort and ends up being killed by the army's dogs.

Rowf and Snitter believe they are safe when they reach Ravenglass, which is by the sea, but a helicopter soon finds them and the dogs run to the beach where they are trapped by the army. Snitter believes that he's seen an island in the distance and swims out into the ocean with Rowf reluctantly following. The dogs are shot at but not harmed. Snitter and Rowf continue swimming towards their "island", but Snitter soon doubts that it may not exist. Rowf insists that it does (suggesting death is the "island") and the two keep on swimming while Rowf emotionally comforts Snitter by saying he will make sure he gets there. It is assumed that they both drowned. During this scene(in the cut version, the uncut shows the lab before the army catches up to the dogs on the beach), the under-secretary phones Dr. Boycott at the research laboratory and tells him to suspend their work completely.

[edit] Edited versions

There are two versions of the film, an 82 minute version and a 99 minute version. The only country currently offering the full length film on DVD is Australia.^[1]

Many missing scenes are completely harmless and were only removed to reduce running time, however, one scene from the full length film was removed because of its shocking content. After a scene of a man falling from a crag whilst trying to shoot the dogs we see that he is clearly killed by the fall. We then see one dog move towards the body. In the full length film this scene is followed by a shot in which a helicopter flies over the snow-covered crags and valleys, cutting to a disturbing close-up shot of the man's body, ripped to shreds. It is clear that the dogs have eaten the corpse.^[2]