E<em>ditor&#8217;s note: This column contains spoilers for the movie &#8220;Marley &amp; Me.&#8221; Readers who intend to see the film should proceed at their own risk.</em></p><p>What do I know, anyway?</p><p>Apparently not much.</p><p>I gave &#8220;Marley &amp; Me&#8221; two stars. Thought it was just OK.</p><p>Most other critics seem to agree. Haven&#8217;t seen the film on any lists of the year&#8217;s best.</p><p>But rank-and-file American moviegoers are voting with their money. And they think this Owen Wilson/Jennifer Aniston film about a young married couple and their incorrigible pooch is terrific stuff.</p><p>The film opened Christmas Day and promptly became the 500-pound gorilla at the box office, earning $106.7 million in just 11 days.</p><p>Take that, &#8220;Milk.&#8221; Eat your heart out, &#8220;Doubt.&#8221; Nyah, nyah, &#8220;Slumdog Millionaire.&#8221;</p><p>You just can&#8217;t beat a dog movie.</p><p>Seriously, we should have seen this one coming. There are historic precedents.</p><p>One of the biggest stars of silent-era Hollywood was a German shepherd named Rin Tin Tin. In the decade before his death in 1932, Rinny starred in 26 wildly successful films for Warner Bros. and was credited with saving the studio from bankruptcy.</p><p>One of his descendants starred in an ABC TV series in the late &#8217;50s.</p><p>The beautiful collie Lassie (who was usually portrayed by a male) hit movie screens in the early &#8217;40s and had a TV show that ran for almost 20 years. In the ensuing decades there have been three additional &#8220;Lassie&#8221; TV series (one of them animated).</p><p>In the early &#8217;90s we had the two &#8220;Beethoven&#8221; movies about a big St. Bernard who&#8217;s always getting into trouble.</p><p>There&#8217;s something about Americans and animals, especially dogs. We love our canine companions, and at the slightest provocation will wax nostalgic on our tail-wagging buddies.</p><p>Here&#8217;s how seriously we take dogs at our house: Before watching a movie, Mrs. Butler will sometimes ask, &#8220;They don&#8217;t hurt a dog in this one, do they?&#8221;</p><p>Armies of stuntmen may fall in a bloody hail of bullets, but let anyone lay a finger on a dog and she&#8217;s out of there.</p><p>Remember 1989&#8217;s &#8220;War of the Roses,&#8221; the film about a battling couple played by Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner (who, incidentally, shows up in &#8220;Marley&#8221;)? There&#8217;s a scene where the husband suspects his spiteful wife of killing their dog.</p><p>This so alarmed preview audiences that at the end of the film director Danny DeVito inserted a shot showing the pet alive and well. By this time the human characters were lying dead in the wreckage of their home, but audiences wanted reassurance that Benny (that was the dog&#8217;s name) survived. They had their priorities.</p><p><em>(Note: Here comes the spoiler. Get out while you can.)</em></p><p>&#8220;Marley&#8221; follows its misbehaving canine star (he&#8217;s played by several golden Labs) from his adoption through his adult life. Of course nobody kills Marley; he gets sick. The rest of the film is a prolonged conclusion that the filmmakers milk for every drop of bathos.</p><p>But from all the wheezing and nose-blowing in the audience you&#8217;d think you were in an influenza ward.</p><p>Call me a cynic, but I believe Marley&#8217;s illness and its inevitable conclusion salvage the movie, sending everybody out in a satisfied tear-stained glow.</p><p>OK, go ahead. Ask the question.</p><p>&#8220;Are you some kind of animal hater, Mr. Butler?&#8221;</p><p>Nope. Yours truly has owned six dogs, the last two of which have passed away on a vet&#8217;s table while I stroked their heads. Very emotional stuff.</p><p>But also, I think, a cheap way to turn around a movie that &#8212; for this viewer, at least &#8212; was wearing out its welcome.