Movie Thoughts: Call of the Wild (1972)

• Released: March 17 1972
• Directed by: Ken Annakin
• Running time: 1 h 40 min
• Rating 3/5

Synopsis

A German shepherd named Buck is taken from his comfortable home to the north to become a sled dog. Here, his hidden lupine instincts emerge.

My Thoughts

Another Call of the Wild adaptation I'm reviewing today, since I want to cross them all off my list. This time the 1972 one!

So the quality of the version I saw was quite bad, with a lot of grain and stripes across the film. This is because the film is in the public domain and most copies that remain are of this bad quality. It didn't detract from the rest of the movie, though.

The film is about 50% focused on Buck and 50% on the people around him. I usually prefer the adaptations that keep the focus on our central dog, but for what this one did, it wasn't bad. The characters weren't awful or anything. Still, some characters were cut or changed. For example, Buck instantly ends up with Thornton after being sold as a sled dog, replacing his mushers from the book, more or less. He does eventually end up with Hal and Mercedes later on in the story, but then makes his way back to Thornton the way things go in the book.

However, I feel that the human relationships are maybe a bit too central stage in this movie. It tries to built up this bond between Thornton and Buck as this strong and deep relationship, but I honestly see him having much more chemistry and honestly even screen time with the other human characters, with his friend (whose name I forgot) and Calliope. He does have his moments with Buck, but it just doesn't take central stage when honestly it should if it wants to be a good adaptation of the book.

As for my usual rant on what type of animal they got to play the wolves: it's huskies. Yep, all of them. Only one of them only remotely resembles a wolf, but even that one has the curly tail and muzzle of a husky. The others look even more like regular huskies, with their "goggle" markings and curly tails. It's pretty confusing, since there's plenty of huskies also playing the roles of simply that; huskies. Really makes you wonder what is supposed to be represent an actual husky and which is supposed to be a wolf. I guess it's kept clear by which ones are wearing harnasses/collars or not, but it's just too confusing. If they'd maybe gotten only huskies to play the wolves and replaced the sled dog huskies with another sled dog breed that doesn't resemble them as much, I might've bought it more. 

Also, Buck is neither a Scotch collie, Saint Bernard or a mutt in this: he's played by a German shepherd. I initially wasn't too fond of this choice (I prefer what they did in Call of the Wild: Dog of the Yukon where they had him played by a Leonberger, a breed which at least somewhat resembles a Saint Bernard), but it does kind of work. He definitely looks more lupine, at least. Still not like an actual wolf, mind you, but since he's supposed to be a full-blooded dog I didn't mind it too much. Spitz is again played by a non-white dog. In fact, he's black. That's about as far from white as you can get.

There were some distracting factors in this movie, such as the weird techno tune that represented the Call. Also, there's a lot of scene inconsistencies. Example: in one scene our "wolves" are hunting reindeer, yet in the shot where they actually attack their prey they swapped out their reindeer for an elk. Buck's wounds change place frequently. Stuff like that that just takes you out of the experience.

A decent adaptation, but it should've had more focus on the bond between John and his dog rather than this 50/50 trying to hit both marks and failing in Buck's regard thing it actually ended up doing.