Review for Digby - the Biggest Dog in the World

Introduction

It’s that time in the review cycle that I get to wax nostalgic once more. Cue the Hovis advert music... Between the ages of four and ten, once every summer I was sure to watch Digby - the Biggest Dog in the World. For a little boy looking for a fun adventure movie, it was guaranteed to deliver comedy, action, a little bit of romance, and a whopping great sheepdog. There was also a brief period that I wanted Jim Dale to be my dad, although this was before I had seen any Carry On movies. It was a summer holiday ritual that I still remember with fondness, so when the chance to revisit that childhood favourite on DVD arose, I leapt at the chance, once again bypassing my common sense. Far too often I have been let down by rampant nostalgia, and watching Digby - the Biggest Dog in the World as an adult may not have the same effect.


Billy White wants a dog. In fact he’s already set his heart on an adorable sheepdog, and a sympathetic Dog Home Manager sees the love and puts the two together. Unfortunately Billy’s grandfather isn’t too keen on what Digby does to his carpets, so Digby has to leave until he’s housetrained. Luckily, Billy’s mother Janine works with someone who loves animals, and arranges for Digby to be taken care of for a while. Jeff Eldon takes care of all of the animals where they work... a military research facility. The latest research is into Project X, a means of rapidly growing food for potential space travel. The problem is that they can’t get it to stop growing. Jeff has the idea that a little Project X will do wonders for his roses... and as you would guess, a confluence of Project X and sheepdog is destined to occur.

The Disc

This is actually the second escape of Digby onto DVD, as it saw a release back in 2006 as well. It gets a 4:3 regular transfer onto this DVD, which is as you would expect, a low budget British film, clear, sharp and colourful for the most part, occasionally a little soft, and with darker detail a little washed out. Grain is apparent, and print damage is light. Overall the source material is stable and very pleasant to watch. The IMDB states that Digby’s OAR is 1.85:1, but I only noticed one scene that looked cropped, with one of the character speaking off the edge of the screen. As I watched Digby on a very square television all through my childhood, I think watching it in widescreen now would be a little disconcerting. The audio comes in resounding DD 2.0 mono English, and there are no subtitles. The dialogue is clear enough though, and that singular theme song comes through well. The disc’s presentation is a simple static menu and there are no extras.

Conclusion

Nostalgia does it to me again! Once again I revisit my youth; only to find that it wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. Digby - the Biggest Dog in the World was great entertainment for a boy of single digit age, whose threshold of entertainment was limited by the watershed, his parents, and a preference for the more childish forms of entertainment. The minute things got serious; I looked for a Tom and Jerry cartoon. At the age of five, I cared about Billy, I cared about the dog, and I wanted them to be together in the end. I laughed at the funny bits, didn’t like the scary bits, and the sad bits made me want a hug from my mum. Things like character, structure, narrative and plot really didn’t bother me.


Show the same movie to an adult and these things do matter, and that’s where Digby - the Biggest Dog in the World falls down. It has a great setup, interesting characters, and a nice premise. It’s a child friendly spoof of all those classic disaster movies like King Kong and Godzilla, although it doesn’t quite hit the same satirical heights as did The Goodies with their giant cat. It also doesn’t have the budget to really go to town with the concept. Made today, it would probably have its denouement atop the Shard in London, but for Digby a nondescript quarry (taking time off from Doctor Who no doubt) has to suffice.


You have the military research facility, which ought to be a fertile source of story ideas and satire, but is curiously left untouched, you have likeable Jeff Eldon, the animal lover in a facility that probably isn’t too kind to its test subjects (again, never really questioned) with a potential love interest in Billy’s single mum Janine (once again just touched upon and then forgotten). There’s a martinet Colonel who’s competing for Janine’s affections and generally giving Jeff a hard time, and you have Spike Milligan as a German psychologist who sees Jeff’s bizarre behaviour and sees a potential paper in him.


The first half hour of Digby - the Biggest Dog in the World is sharp, well written, and strongly constructed. The characters interact, the story develops, and there’s some wit and intelligence to the script that helps it appeal to older audiences as well as children. The highlight for me was a sly Nazi joke (they don’t do Nazi jokes any more) from Spike Milligan (who else?) which is a surprising level of subversion for the film to attain.


But at the half hour mark, it’s as if someone flicks a switch on the script, ditching the smarts and the depth, and choosing instead to appeal merely to the younger members of the audience. Lowbrow slapstick and thin schmaltz ensues, which for a child is no problem, but not so much for mum and dad. Still, after all these years, the special effects, while they obviously don’t live up to modern CGI perfection, do hold up pretty well. If you have little-‘uns that need a fix of entertainment, you can let them see what you used to watch when you were their age.