Really Surprised!

Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Absolutely Fantastic

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Certain seventies movies have such a bonkers plot concept that you have to watch them, if only just to see with your own eyes how they elaborated the idea! Take "The Doberman Gang", for instance. Following a screwed-up bank heist (they put the loot in the trunk of the wrong getaway car) and a romantic night with waitress June, the embittered ex-con Eddie comes up with the brilliant plan to train six fierce Doberman dogs to commit a bank robbery, so that he and his buddies can observe from a distance without running any risks. Brilliant, isn't it? So does this mean that "The Doberman Gang" is a fantastic 70s crime-caper gem with plenty of virulent action sequences and spectacular animal stunts? Unfortunately not … It's more of a slow-paced comedy/buddy movie with enormous amounts of dog training footage and a LOT of country music montages. Eddie enlists the help of former police dog trainer Barney, even though he only worked with German Shepard dogs before and initially doesn't know what he's training the Dobermans for, and puts together a forceful dog pack with the glorious sounding names of legendary bank robbers like Dillinger, Pretty Boy Floyd, Ma Barker, Baby Face Nelson and – of course – Bonnie and Clyde. Unless you have a strong affection for this particular type of dogs (like my mother-in-law, who for some reason collects everything that has to do with Dobermans) there's very little to recommend here. The first 70 or so minutes are quite dull and substantially void, unless you like country music, and the only things to enjoy are the charismatic dogs and the reasonably sympathetic acting performances of the second-rate bank robbers Sammy Bow and JoJo D'Amore. The actual bank heist is obviously a lot more entertaining and the tricks of the dogs and their trek back home are quite exhilarating to watch. There isn't any violence or verbal/physical brutality, so it's perfectly suitable for younger audiences.

"The doggonist gang that the world had ever seen..."At dinner one night, my father-in-law saw a Doberman on TV and asked if I had ever seen the movie where Dobermans rob a bank. I hadn't...but knew from that description alone that I had to track it down.It was released in 1972, directed by Byron Chudnow. Chudnow only directed four movies in his career...The Doberman Gang, The Daring Dobermans, The Amazing Dobermans, and Alex and the Doberman Gang. Pretty safe to say that this guy had an unhealthy obsession with these dogs. It stars TV journeyman actor Byron Mabe, Hal Reed and Julie Parrish, none of whom you've ever heard of.The story revolves around an ex-con named Eddie and his desire to rob a bank without the element of 'human error' once a bank job goes wrong. To do this, he and a dog trainer snag a pack of Dobermans and train them to rob a bank using whistles. Sound crazy? It is. It really is.The premise of this movie sounds a bit better than it actually is. What we actually get is about 10 minutes of set up, an hour of dog training, and a ten minute heist. A bunch of character decisions make no sense, none more than the fact that Eddie is about the least careful criminal one could be. He pulls a waitress that he's known for one night into the job because...well...sex, and when the dog trainer threatens to bolt, he basically lets him. He flat out deserves to get caught. At least the 70's music is 'groovy', featuring a song about the dogs that just classic(ly bad).I cannot recommend seeing The Doberman Gang. The only thing redeeming about this thing is the music and watching a bulldog try to run the doberman course.My final grade: D

This really choice and pleasingly idiosyncratic early 70's low-budget canine crime caper winner delivers the quirky low-key nickel'n'dime junk movie goods with mucho gusto and a welcome dearth of pretense. Irascible criminal mastermind Eddie, fed up with the gross constant ineptitude of his hopelessly fallible human cohorts, kidnaps and trains a sextet of non-error prone super-sharp Doberman pinchers to pull off an intricate bank heist. This funky little number hits all the necessary bases: we've got a speedy steady pace, competent, assured direction by Bryon Ross Chudnow, nifty gritty lowlife characters, solid pro acting, a crankin' soulful heavy on the brass score by Bradford Craig and Alan Silvestri, exquisite crystal clear cinematography by Robert Caramico, a terrifically tense heist set piece, cheesy montages set to marvelously mawkish light FM tunes, and even a slight mild sprinkling of good old fashioned gratuitous sex and violence. Bonus points are in order for both the fabulously corny country-and-western theme song ("They were the dog gonest gang that man did ever see") and the fact that each dobie is named after a notorious 30's Depression era criminal (Ma Parker, Dillinger, Bonnie, Clyde, etc.). In short, this fun flick overall rates as the totally authentic gnarly article.

A group of clever criminals train a six Doberman Pinchers to rob a bank for them in this low-budget crime caper film. Director Byron Chudnow doesn't display a great deal of finesse, nor does the cast of unknowns for that matter, but he manages to get the job done. One of the better B-caper films of its time. This is a guilty pleasure I return to time and time again.