Movies Featuring Greyhounds

While searching for something else on a Greyhound message board recently, I came across an old thread about movies that have Greyhounds in them. In one I posted a few brief reviews of movies that I've revised and preserved here.

Sorceress

Released: 1987 (French with English Subtitles)
Starring: Christine Boisson, Tchéky Karyo
Director: Suzanne Schiffman

Originally released in France as Le Moine et la sorcière (The Monk and the Witch), Sorceress chronicles the medieval legend of a greyhound that killed a large snake which was attacking a baby. In the process of killing the snake, the greyhound knocks over the baby's cradle and the child is covered by the cradle and his bedding. Upon returning home, the knight finds the baby's nursery in shambles, the cradle overturned and the child apparently gone, and seeing blood on the greyhound's jaws, comes to the conclusion that the dog has killed the child. After killing the greyhound in a rage, he hears the baby's cry and finds him safe under his bedding beside the dead snake. Realizing his tragic error, the knight has the greyhound canonized as a saint contrary to the laws of the Church. Saint Guinefort, as she is known by the locals, is revered as a protector of children for centuries afterward.

Everything is fine until Etienne de Bourbon, an Inquisitor, comes to the village to investigate this heresy. There, he discovers Elda, a local healer and mystic. His authority and theology comes into direct conflict with her own practical faith and devotion to healing. As the story unfolds, it is clear that de Bourbon is having difficulty resolving his own doubts as his beliefs are tested by Elda and the villagers. More subtly portrayed is his willful suppression of his physical attraction to her beauty.

This is a fine movie that suffers little from the sub-titles. The French dialogue gives it a level of authenticity that might be lost in the dubbed English version. Christine Boisson is bewitching as Elda, the sorceress, and Tchéky Karyo is convincing as the Inquisitor. The pace of this movie might be too deliberate and its tone too philosophical for some, but it is historically accurate and a stunning piece of filmwork. Highly recommended.


Evelyn

Released: 2002 (U.S.)
Starring: Pierce Brosnan, Sophie Vavasseur, Julianna Margulies, Aidan Quinn
Directors: Bruce Beresford, Jerry Hogrewe

The movie is very loosely based on an actual 1955 court case where a father challenged Irish law in the Supreme Court to regain custody of his kids. Pierce Brosnan, who co-produced the film, portrays Desmond Doyle, a man who must overcome a reputation as a hard-drinking and often temperamental tradesman with a lackadaisical attitude to fatherhood before his wife abandons him and their children. After his daughter is packed off to a Catholic orphanage, he has to fight two battles, one to gain custody of her, and another to reform himself.

Often short of work, one obstacle Doyle must surmount is raising funds for legal fees. A kindly, but obviously unscrupulous track official gives him a hot tip to bet on a greyhound named Slippery Sam, a long-shot. Unbeknownst to Doyle, he feeds sausages to all the other dogs except Sam to influence the outcome of the race. The racing scene is fairly brief and shown at various angles, occasionally out-of-focus and partly in slow motion, not to depict the precise events of the race, but to try to capture the emotions of the race from the perspective of the crowd.

Overall, this is a pretty good movie and gives one a good feel for Ireland in the 1950s. Despite the serious nature of the subject, there were some humorous moments as well. Brosnan was believable as a gritty Irish working man and father. The remaining cast was very strong—the child actors were especially competent. As a greyhound racing fan and a former Rugby player, I appreciated the attention to detail in depicting these two sports on film. Recommended.

Are Greyhounds really mentioned in the Bible?

In February of 2008, I posted the article, "Everything You Know Is Wrong," which supports the idea that the Greyhound breed is of Celtic and therefore European origin, not Egyptian or Middle-Eastern as is widely believed. The article has made the rounds on a number of Greyhound web sites, and invariably there is a response to the effect that since Greyhounds are mentioned in the Bible, they have to be of Middle-Eastern origin.

Are Greyhounds really mentioned in the Bible? Technically, the answer is yes. The King James version of the Bible, published in 1611, makes mention of the breed in Proverbs 30:31. The problem is that the King James Bible is the first to do so. James I directed that the Bible be retranslated to represent the beliefs of the Anglican Church. The Old Testament was translated from the original Hebrew, and the New Testament largely from Greek. In Hebrew, the passage in Proverbs reads differently than the King James version:

If the text stands, there appears to be no better rendering than "girt in the loins," which might fairly be taken to refer to a war horse or to a greyhound. The Persian greyhound would in that case be understood, a hairy race, which, according to the Royal Natural History, is less fleet than the English breed and is used in chasing gazelles and in hunting the wild ass, and which according to Doughty (Arabia Deseria) is kept by the Bedouin. "These dogs are said to be sometimes girdled by their owners to prevent them from over-eating and becoming fat" (L. Fletcher, British Museum (Natural History).

- International Standard Bible Encyclopedia

Persian Greyhound is the obsolete Western name for a Saluki. Since the word Saluki would have been completely unknown to 17th century English readers, the common word "Greyhound" was substituted. Contemporary references to Eastern or Egyptian "Greyhounds" would have to be Salukis, Sloughis or other related sighthounds, not the Celtic dog we call the Greyhound today. The word "Saluki" did not come into common use in the West until the 1920s and was recognized as such by the British Kennel Club in 1923.

Though superficially similar, Salukis and Afghans do not really look like Greyhounds. Their overall conformations and running aptitudes are different. Greyhounds are sprinters and Salukis and Afghans are more suited for endurance. The shape of the head and the ears, especially, are clearly of different types. The dogs pictured in Egyptian murals were unlike the modern Greyhound. The Egyptians had two sighthound breeds, the predecessor of the modern day Saluki, and an extinct breed, the Tesem. The former are depicted as having lop ears and a feathered tail, just as Salukis have today, while images of the Tesem have prick ears and a curled tail. Skeletal remains of Salukis have been unearthed in Iraq that date from 4400-3800 B.C. which make a strong case for it to be considered the oldest extant dog breed. Skeletal remains of dogs with characteristics of Tesems have also been found from the period 3750-3400 B.C., but in Mesopotamia, which suggests they were imported into Egypt from the East. The rose ear, which is typical of Greyhound-type dogs was not depicted in Egyptian art.

The dogs of Celtic origin, the Greyhound, Irish Wolfhound, Scottish Deerhound, Galgo and Whippet, all have the rose ear and a similar shape of the head. These and the Gaelic Vertragus, their forebear, can be found in the footprint of Celtic culture as indicated in a map of the era (http://www.fflint.co.uk/celts.html). Other descendants like the Hungarian Greyhound and the extinct Frisian Greyhound also fit the footprint. The last example of the Frisian Greyhound, native to modern-day Holland, passed on prior to WWII. Images of rose-eared dogs exist from the pre-contact period, before literate societies like Rome and Greece encountered the Celts. An Iron Age icon dates from 500 B.C. (http://www.fernhill.com/imagesclip_image004_0000.jpg) Modern DNA analysis, as shown in the February 2008 article, verifies that the breeds are genetically distinct.

Proverbs dates from approximately 650 B.C., well prior to Celtic contact with Mediterranean cultures. The Saluki would have been the predominant coursing breed of that era and familiar to all who lived in the Middle East. If the Hebrew reference is indeed to a dog, and not a warhorse (or even a rooster as some have speculated), then it's all but certain that the Saluki is the "Greyhound" mentioned in the Bible.