If you've never seen or heard of this movie, you may want to set your DVD/VCRs now. It is one of my favorites as Randy does a fantastic job of narrating as well as playing a part. Why they put it on early AM when it is such a great show is beyond me.
Anyway, I hope you get this channel, ENCWAM. According to my TV Fios lineup, it says it is forteens. It reads:
Encore Wam is for teens, providing a cool place to see great movies and teen entertainment.
See above for times and a little about the movie and cast.
As always, double check your local listings.
Here is some info from the press kit that was released prior to the first airing of the movie on animal Plannet.
Enjoy!!!

THE TRIAL OF OLD DRUM
(from the Press Kit of same)

BEHIND THE SCENES AT "The TRIAL OF OLD DRUM"

Writer Ralph Gaby Wilson on the origin of the script

"As a youngster," Wilson recalls, "I enjoyed writing short stories. But as my father rightfally pointed out, I was mostly just stringing words together." A drive from the family's home in Overland Park, Kansas to Warrensburg, Missouri, about 50 miles away, during which Wilson's father told him about a monument they were going to see, provided all that was needed for the fledgling, young writer to scrawl a four-page story that would, many years
later, provide the framework of the movie "THE TRIAL OF OLD DRUM."
Some 35 years later, while going through old papers sent to him by his mother after a day cleaning out her attic, Wilson rediscovered the Old Drum manuscript he wrote as a ten-year-old. "How did I let this story slip by me?" he remembers thinking. Not about to let it slip by again, he soon began research in earnest on Old Drum, and proceeded to write the screenplay. So began the process of bringing "The Trial of Old Drum" to the screen.
"A lot of the values expressed in the story, a lot of the things this movie speaks to, are very much like those of my own childhood," further remarks Wilson. "In researching the story, I found much hadn't changed in Warrensburg over the years. It was a lot of fun to write it, it gave me a chance to revisit my youth."
To make the movie more accessible to today's audiences, Wilson set the story in 1955, a gentler, simpler time. "It was time when neighbors shared a sense of community and rarely even locked the door to their home during the day," remembers Wilson. "People trusted and respected one another, and were anyone caught cheating or stealing, everyone knew about it in short order."

Director Sean McNamara on the chaHenges of Mming THE TRIAL OF OLD DRUM

"When Bruce Johnson from Porchlight Entertainment came to me and said he wanted to do a film about a dog, but he wanted it set in 1955, and he wanted it with a slow, Aaron Coplandlike Americana pace, it was a little nerve wracking at first because I'm used to making family films with a lot of pace. But on this one I knew it was going to slow way, way down, so it was a huge departure from what I'm used to."
Helping McNamara get a handle on just what that pace should be was Randy Travis, whose character, Charles Burden, relates much of the story in voice-over dialogue. "Before I begin filming, I like to get the actors in and I start hearing the pace of their voice. Randy read two pages of the script. All of a sudden his voice, his delivery, changed the pace and the feeling of the film completely. I knew then what we were going to make."
"The first thing that appealed to me about "THE TRIAL OF OLD DRUM," the director continues, "was that it was based on a true story, that a dog had actually been put on trial for killing sheep. Also, I hadn't done a film about a boy and his dog - - I had done a film about a boy and his Ninj a, a boy and his ghost, a boy and his creature - - but I had never had done an old fashioned 'boy and his dog' story. I always wanted to do something like that. I
grew up with two dogs, and I know that relationship."

The biggest challenge for McNamara was simply doing a film with an animal in it so much of the time. In "THE Trial OF OLD DRUM," the dog is in almost 95% of the film. And unlike other films the director has done with animals, where he could separate shooting the animals from shooting the humans, in this film the dog had to be in almost every frame together with the humans.

Ron Perlman on his role as Charles Burden

Perlman acknowledges that one of the things that appealed to him to about doing the film was the audience for which it is intended. "I'm a dad, the father of two," he continues. I would say that about 90% of the stuff I do, I wouldn't even think about letting my kids see. It's always nice to participate in something that I'm proud to take my children to and say that I was a part of. Something that's entertaining, that's basic, yet not saccharine or
doesn't talk down to the audience."
"The great thing about this particular piece of material," Perlman adds, "is that even though we're treading on familiar territory that's been trodden on many times over, our writer, Ralph Gaby Wilson, has found a very light touch in the telling of the story. And he's peopled it with richly textured characters, all of whom have been brought to life by the good fortune of having a terrific cast. It's a departure for me. I've done a lot of big
hardware movies, a lot of bad guys. This guy's got his halo on straight."
Perlman was also struck by some of the other qualities of the story such as what the scenario does to the dynamic of the town and the concept of neighborliness. "A lot is played out in terms of morality and loyalty and honesty and deception - those things are really the stars of the movie."
As the father of a fifteen-year-old daughter and a nine-year-old son in real life, the role of Charlie's father in the movie was a comfortable fit for Perlman. "Playing Charlie's dad was just like being a dad to my own son," he explains. "The same concerns, the same worries, the decision making as to how loose a tether I can keep on him without losing my grip and how much freedom to give him. How to walk that fine line between being a friend and
somebody's he's responsible to and accountable to, and allowing him the freedom to discover the world while he's got to be instilled with the fact that he's one of many and there are rules to be followed. Those are the things that Charles Burden is constantly juggling in rearing Charlie."

Randy Travis on his role as the modern-day Charlie Burden

"You're looking at a boy who grew up in the country, around animals his whole life, and a dog being his best friend. I have a lot in common with this character. I grew up the same basically. I had horses and dogs, and I grew up on a farm way out in the country in North Carolina with very few neighbors. There are a lot of parallels in this story and in this kid's life with my own."
"I was drawn to it from the first read through. I thought it was a great story that was well written, and I liked the fact that it was based on a true story. Also, it's very much a family kind of show. There's certainly not enough of them made these days."

"I also like that it portrays a simpler life - kids with good morals, parents with good morals, good ethics. And it's about trying to raise children in a good way, and teach them the things they need to know and should know in life. And it's about a place where it was hard to make en( meet, but at the same time, a good place - in the sense, for example, that people around here seldom lock their doors. That was the way I grew up too. I don't think my
grandmother ever locked her front door."
"You can say it's just about the dog and what happens to him obviously, but you also catch little glimpses here and there of lessons to be learned as far as parents go, and as far as kids go. Kids who see it will learn, for instance, about loyalty, and friendship."

Scott Bakula as George Vest

"He's an up and coming lawyer, a good lawyer. He's got a big heart. What I like about him is that he recognizes in Charlie something special, and chooses to do something almost as community service. This isn't really a case, on the surface, that would seem like something he would do. And then, of course, he gets caught up in the whole story and the whole reality of these people's lives."
The actor, who himself had to put an ailing, old pet dog to sleep only last year, admits that he can identify with a lot of the emotion of the content in the speech that he gives in a effort to save Old Drum. "I'm a dog lover, I've had dogs my whole life. The speech that Vest gives to the jury at the end of the trial struck a chord in me." After reading the script, Bakula adds, "I called quickly and said 'I'd be happy to do this, because I'd love
to speak those words."
"The story is typical of what we consider to be old fashion ideals about how a town works," continues Bakula, "how a town struggles because of its smallness, and its intimacy with what most people would perceive to be potentially small problems. They affect the town in different ways, especially back then when the life was all about the town. And I think what interesting is when you see a group of people like this that rally around or are divided
by an issue that seems as potentially benign as sheep being killed by the best dog in town, it reminds of us not only of simpler times but that kind of nuclear family feeling that is pretty much gone from the world. There is no relationship with your neighbors necessarily anymore, and the sense of community in most places is gone. That's what I find compelling about a time when people rallied together, and fought each other and still loved each
other, because they all lived n the : same area and they all needed each other."

John Schuck, on his role as Lon Hornsby

"[I] found his character a very complex one." "He's a man who the spark of life has definitely gone out of," says Schuck. "His life is hard in this part of Missouri. He lost his sister, Charles Burden's deceased wife, a couple of years back and he has never forgiven him, as he believes she could have been saved if she had gotten medical attention sooner. He's completely unreasonable about it."
The role, a departure from the generally jovial, naive characters audiences have become accustomed to seeing him in, such as his Sgt. Enright in the long running hit series McMillan and Wife, presented Schuck with some interesting challenges. "One of the things I always' love to do with characters is find where their humor lies," he says. "I always find that's an interesting path that leads you to the depths of a character."

"Lon I wanted to do because he is so different from the type that I normally am allowed to do," continues Schuck. "A role like this is challenging. And I liked the people in this story, because they all have a fiber about them. They have a toughness that the Missouri life must have created for them."

Old Drum

Sharing the title role of Old Drum are three screen veterans, Ajax, Solar and Cosmos three male Golden Retrievers working under the direction of trainer Janine Aines with Animal Actors of Hollywood.
While the dogs shared equally in the role, each had its own specialty - one is better around bikes and wagons, another more comfortable in the water, and the other more adept at working with some of the other animals used in filming, such as sheep and chickens.
Aines recalls a particularly difficult scene involving the dogs in which Old Drum had to convincingly fight with a pack of wild dogs. Aines was able to pull it off because Solar, the dog used in the scene, had been raised by Aines as a puppy with two of the other dogs in the scene, a German Shepherd and a Rottweiler. What appears on the screen as a ferocious fight, with the aid of sound effects, is simply playing among the dogs.
Among Ajax, Solar and Cosmos' collective screen credits are "Full House," "Fluke," "The Drew Carey Show ... .. Then Came You," and innumerable commercials.

Always and Forever..An RT Fan
Linda and Guide, Greg

and a very enjoyable movie. It too, is one of my favorites. Being a dog lover all my life, the story really touched me. Especially the summation given by the lawyer Vest at the end.

Thanks Linda for posting this . I had never seen it before. Interesting to see how and why they choose the actors that they did to portray the characters in the movie. Dee

PS. can you send a copy of this to my email at aol. I currently have no ink in my printer to copy it from here. There I can keep it as new mail until I am able to get a new ink cartridge.

Dee, yes, will send it on over via e-mail.

I guess the storyhas special meanig for me also having had all goldens for my guides and being a dog lover myself.

always and Forever...An RT Fan
Linda and Guide, Greg

My friend gifted me this film last year in 2008. The moment I watched it, I fell in love with the film. The film is simply a great story. I absoutely enjoyed it very much. =)

Take care
Forever and ever a # 1 RT Fan
Jasmin

Thanks Linda, I got it. Dee