A highly fictionalized animated film, Balto, was made by Steven Spielberg’s company in 1995. Balto, historically, has been remembered as the heroic hound who saved the children of Nome. There’s a statue in Central Park of a sled dog called Balto, to commemorate the Great Race of Mercy. So you’re not going to have to do too much manipulating to get people really worried. When Togo runs these 200-some odd miles, in blizzard conditions, he’s a 12-year-old dog. “I’m trying to tell the best truth I can tell about the situation. “I’m not trying to manipulate the audience,” Flynn says. There’s a bit of vintage Disney (think Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey, or even Old Yeller) in Togo, but the fact that it’s true – everything that happens in the film happened in real life – lends it a bittersweet poignancy that lasts until the final frames. I wanted it to be about the relationship with the dog, and the relationship with his wife, and the very end of the movie ties together everyone who’s ever had a dog. “I didn’t want it to be specifically about the serum run. “I couldn’t believe that a story like this fell into my lap,” Flynn says. And Togo, as Seppala’s lead dog, pulled his master and his team over nearly half of the total trail, by far the greatest distance traveled by any team, and through the most dangerous terrain of all. It is, to this day, the most famous tale of canine heroism in American history. Togo cuts between the early years, when Togo was just another dog in Seppala’s kennel, and a thorn in his side, to the heart of the movie: The 1925 “Great Race of Mercy,” in which dog teams were used as relays to deliver – across 600 miles of treacherous blizzard conditions – medicine to Nome, where a diphtheria epidemic was killing the town’s children. “This was Seppala’s business, and to him, this unruly dog was ruining it. “It’s absolutely true that Seppala so was annoyed by this puppy because the puppy was small, the puppy was rambunctious and an escape artist,” Flynn reports. In the movie – which was shot in Alberta, Canada, in sub-zero temperatures – it’s Seppala’s wife Constance (Julianne Nicholson) who sees potential in Togo, a pup born runty and free-spirited, not the sort of qualities that make for obedient, hard-working sled dogs, members of a life-or-death team. ![]() He was a kind guy about his dogs, but he never wanted to make them into pets. “They brought it to me and I came up with the idea that this would be more of a love story about our infatuation with dogs,” Flynn explains, “and specifically, one man, who is very pragmatic and very stoic about his dogs. Seppala called Togo “a natural-born leader,” and said he was “the best dog that ever traveled the Alaska trail.”ĭirected by Ericson Core, who was also director of photography, the film balances the bone-chilling realism of harsh Alaskan winters with a parallel tale about the relationship between a man and his dog. Known far and wide for his strength and endurance, he won three All-Alaska championships in lead position. Against all odds, Togo went on to become lead dog in Nome musher Leonhard Seppala’s team. The amazing story is one hundred percent true. And he’s been nominated by the Writers Guild of America, in the “Original Long Form” category. It’s about an “untrainable” Siberian Husky pressed into service as a sled dog in 1920s Alaska. 20, the Disney+ streaming service will debut the family drama Togo, starring Willem Dafoe and Julianne Nicholson. Things began turning around for Tom Flynn not long after settling in the bay area. ![]() If you hit a bottom swell, and you’re of a certain age, you’re radioactive and you’re not going to get any work.” But Hollywood, he discovered, “is like the waves of an ocean – you’re either on top of the swells, or you’re down in the bottom of the swells. The Ohio native had originally headed west with a degree in English lit and a lot of big ideas. They got bought, but they didn’t get made.” “I wrote nothing but comedies that didn’t get made. So he and his wife, actress Andi Matheny, moved across the country, to St. The film, which he also directed, was not a success, and finally, by 2010, a somewhat bitter Tom Flynn decided it was time to paraphrase the old Irving Berlin song: He had no business in show business. Tom Flynn spent 28 years toiling away as a screenwriter in Los Angeles in all that time, exactly one of his scripts got produced. ![]() Tom Flynn on the “Togo” set in Alberta, Canada.
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