In a magazine interview, Cary told the interviewer that he had hoped, even prayed, he would never be called upon to repeat what the exhibitors chose to call his “big scene.”
“I had to strike a dog. Not a really harsh blow, you understand, but I had to shove that dog from me roughly and he could not understand why I had to do that to him. He was a superb dog, had been raised at the ‘Seeing Eye’ institution that trains dogs to guide the blind. I had him around me for weeks before production started so that we would become thoroughly acquainted, and so he would learn that I was not blind, but that at certain times I would pretend to be and he must lead me just as carefully as he would a sightless person. All this the dog soon understood. But when we started work, he never could understand why I had to strike out at him during that scene in a mountain cabin when I am supposed to go mad with rage because I cannot see. It made me feel so cheap and mean, for I knew the dog couldn’t understand. I hope I will never have to repeat that performance ever again.”
Silverscreen, May 1935
Clip from “Wings in the Dark” (1935)
