LQ Jones is known equally for his roles in such classic cinema as “The Wild Bunch” and his outspoken nature. The director of the classic science fiction film “A Boy and His Dog”, LQ and I recently talked about the film and where its place in history is.DD: What, if anything, have you never been asked about A Boy and his Dog that you just want to get on the record?

LQ: I don’t believe I can think of anything that hasn’t been asked, nor said. A lot of people don’t know this, but Boy is the only motion picture… THE only motion picture, besides the products that were put out by Disney, that has ever gone out twice. Most people think there are a lot of them. Not true. It’s the only motion picture to go worldwide successfully two times in a row. Dekker, we put it out first in ‘75 and then again in 1982. Hell, I went with the picture all over the country, some in Canada, some in Europe. I like to do it as a little pay back for the people who love it; People who like something a little unusual. In doing it I can not imagine a question to be asked that hasn’t been asked. Plus the fact that THEY tell me things I’d never thought of. Down in Topeka someone asked a question of why did the people try to talk to the dog, Doctor Moore. They brought the dog in for questioning. The question was “How in the hell did they know the dog could talk?” I was kinda stuck for an answer. Then someone else in the audience said, “Well, it’s pretty simple stupid. They’ve been watching Vic and Blood for who knows how long. So their theory is that you can talk to any dog you want to.” That answer is pretty simple, but I sure as hell never thought of it.

DD: How did it happen that you adapted the story and not Harlan?

LQ: Well, we made the deal and I didn’t have much money, but we were offering everything we had. He was a little bit disgruntled because he’d been to see one of the big houses… one of the majors… and after they’d had a few drinks and lied to each other for a few minutes the first thing out of the studio’s mouth was “How are we going to animate the dog’s mouth?” Well, that was the end of that and Harlan was out the door. So, when I called him and we talked about the thing he realized I had a fair handle on what he was trying to do. I said look Harlan, this is all the money we got and we struck the deal and I ask how long it would take him to write it. Harlan said, “Not very long. Two or three weeks. It’s my favorite story I’ve ever written.” So I left him and I had a movie to do in Phoenix or Tucson. So, I was gone for four months. When I came back I expected the thing to be finished. I think we had maybe fourteen pages. Not only were they only fourteen pages but they were terrible. I’m pressing him and it turns out he tells me his mother had died. I can understand that. So I tell him that when he’s ready he can get back on it. It took about a month and he started again and he got one page and stopped. I call him and say, “What the hell’s going on?” He says, “I don’t know how to tell you this, but my mother died.” As it turns out his mother died three times while he was supposed to be writing the script. The truth was he just ran dry. This happens to everybody for Christ sake, but he could’ve just told me. The last time I said, Harlan, I don’t have any choice, I’m running out of money. I’ve only got so much to begin with, which I’d practically stolen and I damn sure can’t get any more. If you don’t write it I’ll have to write it myself. He said “Christ! Not that!” So, he started writing again. I think he got two pages this time. I said to hell with it and I started writing. I was working all the time and so I’d come home, do my business until maybe midnight and then I’d stay up and write Boy and his Dog. I did it all after midnight ‘cause the phone didn’t ring and I didn’t have to talk to anybody. I’d write about eight pages, get up… go to work… get home do the whole thing over. When midnight would get around I’d read what I wrote, throw away seven pages and start over. It took me close to a year. Didn’t talk to Harlan. When I got through I told him he should read the script. He said he wouldn’t read it. I said, “We’re gonna start shooting why don’t you come out and I’ll write a part in for you.” He said, “I won’t do it!” We got done with it, put the assembly together and he said, “Don’t care. Don’t want to see it.” Got to the final cut, called him, he said he didn’t want to see it. Then, out of the blue he called up and wanted to see the picture.

So I set it up at Technicolor. Knowing Harlan, do you know Harlan?

DD: Only urban legends. I haven’t bumped into him yet.

LQ: Well, I figured if a fight breaks out not many people would get in the way. So I sat him down in the front row and I sat in the back so I could see him coming. He never said one thing. Didn’t move. When we got to the end credits he came charging up the aisle. I thought, well, the fight is on. He rushed up, grabbed hold of me and said, “That’s the story I wrote.” And left.

DD: Harlan hates the last line.

LQ: It took me over a year to write the damned thing. I wrote maybe four or five thousand lines for that one line. It worked for me, so I put it in the picture. It did not work for Harlan. I said a… I really can’t change it… b… I wouldn’t change it if I could. When you make a picture about a story I write you can write whatever line you want and that’s the end of the argument. He still doesn’t like it. He wanted the line “A boy loves his dog.” It worked perfectly in the novella. It does not work in the picture. We have a difference of opinions and that’s the way it sits. It’s different when you make a picture. About half the audience is going to get what’s going on when I start to dissolve at the end. Another quarter will get it when you hear that crackling noise.

DD: It’s that build that makes it so great.

LQ: It’s that last line that makes the audience put it all together.

DD: How did you get the movie out originally?

LQ: Few people realize this, but other than Stanley Kubrik’s 2001 A Boy and His Dog is the most carefully released film ever released by a business. This is because if you tried to book it back in 1975 you couldn’t book it unless one of us walked the theater and looked at the lumens, listened to the sound effects, seen how clean you kept your house. We opened it in Austin because I knew Austin. We didn’t advertise. We didn’t have a trailer. We put it out on the radio. We went to the stations that we knew would be talking to kids at universities. We started doing three midnight shows in a row… no charge, just opened the doors and let them come in. The theater said, maybe you can stay for a week. Maybe not. Well, we stayed in there for six weeks and they put us in another house that stayed for six weeks and we were off and running. All because I was able to reach the people at the university and saw in it what I wanted them to see.

DD: It really was amazing what you could accomplish without a lot of resources.

LQ: The whole movie was like that. We didn’t have much money and back in those days things like the land… we were shooting in the desert… and back then the land had to be bought. The government wouldn’t lease it to you. So we had to buy the land from the government and give it back. All of the sets, everything you see on screen was built. All of those sets were built by us. In fact, my son was in charge of having it all put up. To put it in perspective their were three majors that were interested in producing the feature. One of them put together a budget of what it would cost to make boy and build three square city blocks of sets. Now that’s a huge set… huge. when we filmed Boy our sets covered four and half square miles. They wanted to make the picture for three million dollars. when we made the picture it cost us four-hundred thousand. Everything in the movie was constructed for the picture, except the desert.

DD: What can you say to people who want to make an independent film these days?

LQ: Well, If you want to be creative. If you really want to be creative the best thing you can do is make a film. The problem is that there are young people who only grew up on television making movies that only reflect what they’ve seen in other movies.

DD: To be fair, I’m young and I know a lot of people who used the television to be exposed to different filmmakers and genres that made them want to understand how those great movies were made and how they can make great movies too.

LQ: That’s true, and as you well know the industry is going into the hands of young people. It’s not a new thing. If you checked back in on them in 1901 they’d be saying similar things, but the young people have to remember that to make a good picture it’s not all about showing everything in detail. When I was in The Wild Bunch it was one of the bloodiest movies ever made, but it was also something with real meaning behind it. It was Sam. That’s what I mean. I think young people getting into films should remember that the gore and the violence has to have context or else it has no real meaning.

LQ Jones has appeared in over 150 film and television productions.

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