Director Michael Winner did make some good movies during his career, though not only did his talents lie more towards action and suspense, but even in his better movies he sometimes had a heavy handed style. So it's really surprising that he was chosen to direct this silly comedy. Actually, labelling it as "silly" is giving it too much credit. For the most part, it's a really lame comedy, never finding a constant tone and instead going all over the map from slapstick to satire. That might not have mattered had the humor been funny, but it never is, one reason being that it more often than not comes across in a low energy style. There is some fun seeing so many well known faces in cameos, but these actors are usually not given enough material to make a really good impression. It doesn't help that the movie is shoddily photographed, particularly in the outdoor sequences. "The Dog Who Saved Hollywood?" The dog (who is almost an afterthought many times) should have tried to save this movie instead.

What can you say about a film that feels like a graduation exercise by the B-grade film students out of UCLA? "A, for effort." Now, not to get too side tracked here, but if SF State Students had done this film, it would have been all artsy and existential, but I digress."Won Ton Ton" is a nod to old Hollywood, and sends up the old classic system before the Golden Age of Hollywood. This was the period when visual gags and formulations that we see in today's films were forged and put on the screen for the first time for all to see. Pretty starlets in chorus lines, stage hands pretending to be big shots to take advantage of pretty young ladies, double dealing and creative bookeeping tinsel-town style, movie moguls and classic vaudeville actors are all showcased here.One is hard pressed to malign the film, but let's face it, it's got charm but also some issues. The thing that somewhat torpedoes this film is the post production. The sound is raw. It's all scratch track (or mostly), and it gives the film a kind of amateurish family film feel, which makes it hard to accept the visual cues and other gags the movie trying to convey. There's some looped sounds, but one wonders why the post isn't a bit more refined.For all that it's actually quite an endearing film. Certainly not the best, but definitely a charmer. A lot of classic faces from the 50s and 60s make cameos, and the lines they deliver are good, but the film is somewhat misdirected, and Bruce Dern (as good an actor as he is) seems somewhat odd for the role.The film, as much work was put into this thing, seems a little on the low budget side. Still, after having viewing it after 30+ years later, I can still warm up to it some. It's really a film for industry insiders with as flare for their own history..Then, there's the dog (or series of dogs used for the lead). This film and a few other shows popularized the German Shepard, and we see here the showcasing and capitalization of the Bavarian hound. Well, they say never work with children or animals, but Won Ton Ton holds its own in a low budget off-beat homage sort of way.If you're a real Hollywood aficionado, then this film might satisfy. Otherwise maybe see it once, and then pass it off to a friend. :-)

I knew if I came here I would see review after review telling me this is funny and a lost gem. It's not funny. It's not a lost gem. It doesn't matter whether you were in high school when you saw it, or whether you were eighty or whether you were six - it is truly one of the unfunniest comedies ever made, perhaps the unfunniest of all time. The dog is great. Madeline Kahn and the large cast of cameos are fun. Bruce Dern - not exactly Mr. Comedy. Michael Winner - the man who made Death Wish - that's who I'd hire to direct a comedy. The script is horrible, Winner is a Loser, and I just marvel at the deluded people who come to post at the IMDb. I know there is no accounting for taste, but when a movie is this bad, this blatantly bad, then one's mind is boggled reading these ridiculous comments. I was around Paramount at the time this film was released - they were really on a roll with terrible comedies - this, The Big Bus, and not only their comedies, but all their films save for one or two. Perhaps that's what happens when an Production Designer is made the head of a studio (Dick Sylbert). I didn't really think I could find this film worse than when I saw it on its original release, but having just watched the DVD, it is indeed worse. An all-time bomb. The critics and audience of the time were right - the delusional here are completely wrong.

EVERY movie nut has a few in his collection that he hides from his friends... films that "aren't cool", trashy films with no redeeming social value, outrageous films with no importance whatever. Films that you secretly watch from time to time just because they're FUN!I'll come clean here... ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW, POOTIE TANG, SILENT NIGHT DEADLY NIGHT, CANDY and ROCK & ROLL HIGH SCHOOL are among MY Guilty Pleasures.An outstanding member of my back-of-the-shelf collection is WON TON TON, THE DOG WHO SAVED Hollywood.This one is DEFINITELY for those folks whose knowledge of American cinema goes back a LONG way... back to the Mack Sennett comedies, and to the days before Hollywood became a multibillion dollar Money Machine. It's a sort of Love Letter to the silent screen stars of the 1920's; they appear in a copious number of cameos here. If you don't know who the Ritz Brothers were, you won't get this film!Madelein Kahn literally steals the show from a somewhat dopey German Shepard, a MAJOR achievement for ANY actor or actress! There's an old stage saying that one should NEVER work with kids or animals; they'll steal your scenes every time without even trying. Kahn MORE than held her own, even successfully stealing scenes from the pooch. Check out the scene where the roast chicken falls off of the delivery truck, and Kahn and Won Ton Ton fight over possession of it. She just DUSTED the dog, and overall HE comes off as the comedic straight man!The only other recent actor that comes close to this level of thespian gallantry and sheer talent is Jim Bellushi in his performance in K9... he's ANOTHER screwball comedian who can pull it off successfully.Bruce Dern's performance is somewhat wooden. Dern's persona literally radiates instability and danger... NOT good for comedy. He's gamely going through the motions here; it quickly becomes painfully apparent that Dern, as fine an actor as he is, has NO potential in comedic roles.Art Carney does his usual masterful job of playing a curmudgeonly movie producer, constantly shooting down Dern's half baked movie ideas ("There's this little girl in Kansas, see, and a tornado takes her and her house to this magic land, somewhere over the rainbow...").One of the unsung heros here is Ron Liebman; he shows a flair for subtle comedy that's totally unexpected.It's not a film for everyone; a LOT of folks will HATE it. But.. if you love the REALLY old movies, and you can FIND it, WON TON TON is good for an evening's entertainment.