Come Back, Little Sheba (1952) review

College student Marie (Terry Moore) rents a room from unhappy housewife Lola (Shirley Booth) and her recovering alcoholic husband Doc Delaney (Burt Lancaster), who works as a chiropractor, but her presence, as well as her dalliances with both track and field star Turk (Richard Jaeckel) and her fiancée Bruce (Walter Kelley), sends Doc back to the bottle.  Since there's a lack of actual drama until the very end - with a drunken Doc attacking Lola with a knife - it's a morbid one-woman show with the camera fixated on twitchy Lola as she cycles through all the emotions (Booth won an Academy Award for her performance) while lanky (and probably miscast) Lancaster stands around like Lurch from The Addams Family, appearing perpetually forlorn (or perhaps dreaming of whiskey).  There's an improbable "uplifting" conclusion in which it's suggested their marriage will survive and he's on the road to recovery, but considering how deep the misery is, I doubt it.  The missing dog of the title that Lola keeps bringing up can represent anything you want it to: vanished hopes and dreams, the couple's deceased child, Doc's lost medical degree, etc.