'Forbidden Games'

There's an extremely poignant scene at the beginning of this film where a line of people in their wagons, buggies and cars are attempting to flee German bombers somewhere in the French countryside.

In one wagon, a little girl's dog jumps out of her lap and over a bridge. The little girl jumps off the wagon in chase. Her mother follows suit along with her father.

A German pilot strafes the area and kills the little girl's parents. Meanwhile, and my eyes maintained focus on this, the girl is holding her dog and it is without a doubt dead. It's limp body is there in her arms and she is not fully aware of the three losses she just incurred thanks to running away from the wagon.

A family comes by, throws the dog's carcass into the river and takes the girl, who runs away again and starts the full plot of the film as she winds up staying with a farming family and striking up an unusually strong bond with the youngest boy before she is taken to stay at an orphanage.

I still couldn't get my mind off that dead dog. I mean, I might have been a fake dog. However, there is no mistaking the twitching and movement of the dog's head and body as its whipped to and fro in the action. If it's not a real dead dog, then it's a brilliant prop that looks surprisingly like a real dead dog.

But this is the 1950s. Chances are it's a real dog and it was killed on the set, somehow. Just the oddest thing I've seen in a long time and I can't get it out of my head.