Last time on Weird Movie of the Week, we got the greatest action movie never made. This time, we’ve got a touching tale of a reincarnated dog trying to solve his own murder called You Never Can Tell:
An ex-army dog inherits a fortune from his eccentric millionaire owner, and which is poisoned, asks the leader in the heaven for animals to send him back to Earth, as a human private investigator, to solve his own murder.
And if that’s not enough for you, the humanimal PI also apparently falls in love with his former caretaker, the eccentric millionaire’s secretary. To allay any, er, qualms you may have with this, they reveal that her father was a reincarnated Scottish Terrier, so she’s part humanimal as well (humanimals, humanimals everywhere!)
I first learned of this when it showed up on the Criterion Channel and someone recommended it before it fell off the service. I didn’t see it in time, and it’s not available anywhere else, so I filed it away as a potential WMotW, pending actually watching it (I don’t always watch the WMotW, but it’s nice when I can and this seemed like the sort of thing I should watch). However, I did manage to track down a copy on the Internet Archive (It appears to be a VHS rip of a double feature from TNT – You Never Can Tell doesn’t start until minute 34 or so.)
Look, I’m not going to claim it’s classic cinema, but it’s a kooky premise and there’s some goofy jokes (the detective side-eying fire hydrants, his partner, a former Kentucky Racehorse, being able to run really fast, that sort of thing…) and it’s a brisk 78 minutes. Plus, doggies! It’s probably Dean Koontz’s favorite movie.