Movie Thoughts: Call of the Wild (1976)

• Released: 22 May 1976
• Directed by: Jerry Jameson
• Running time: 1 h 39 min
• Rating: 2/5

Synopsis

A dog befriends a prospector in the cold north he's taken to for dogsledding purposes.

My Thoughts

Another Call of the Wild movie adaptation to cross of my list, I guess. Is it competent? Eh, kinda.

As an adaptation, it's more loose than some others I've seen. John Thronton travels on the sled with Francois from the beginning, rather than Perrault. He also doesn't form a bond with Buck until after Francois betrays him and he cuts him loose from the sled. Hal and his crew don't even show up. 

From here on, it's more faithful, with the Buck proving his love and strength to Thornton, as well as the mine, the Yeehat assault on John and Buck becoming feral. I didn't care much for the first half. Not just because it was less loyal to the book, but also because the pacing was a bit wonky and I just didn't care for these human characters that kept overshadowing Buck. The latter half, being not only more faithful but also more focused on the central character, does a better job.

The acting was fine, the cinematography was decent, but some of the editing was a bit awkward (starting each scene with a sepia photo before fading into the scene itself). I also just don't like the addition to Francois being a traitor and Thornton not even caring about Buck in the beginning. 

The animal they got to play Buck, though I can't tell what breed mix he exactly is, looks the part of Buck pretty decently. He's big, he looks like he could be a Saint Bernard mix or at least some other dog like a Mastiff, and like I've said before, I like the more floppy-eared dog-like Bucks rather than those  that portray him as a German shepherd or husky. 

The wolves were not wolves at all, but just dogs with pricked ears. They're not the right size, the proportions don't match, etc. There is two instances where they used clips of a wild wolf, but since those were more closeup shots where we don't see the environment or other characters I think those might've been stock footage or something similar, because otherwise the wolves are just portrayed by dogs here. 

I did like this films choice of dog they got to play Spitz. He's for once actually pale (though not fully white lik in the book), and I do like his markings and just general appearance. When I imagine Spitz, this is kind of what I imagine.

Overall a pretty dull adaptation that took too many unnecessary diversions from the plot (especially in the first half). It's okay, but nothing more and nothing less.