When Movies Went To The Dogs

What Pulled Sleds For Reading, Then Watching, Wildlife

So far as the mass sees it, classic movies bear much a same onus as classic books. Too few are widely read or watched. I heard of a rich sponsor once who tried spreading great music country wide. He figured just hearing Beethoven, Debussy, the rest, would make converts of us all. After ten years, his project chucked, the would-be spreader of culture acknowledged that classics were for an elite after all. Irony is that all art was once brand new and (mostly) popular, at least to first receiver eyes and ears. People think of classic novels as something they were compelled to read in school, Never Again forsworn as doors swing behind graduation. I got out a so-called Great Book last week, Jack London's The Call Of The Wild, published in 1903, serialized in The Saturday Evening Post earlier that same year, and never out of print since. Were Post readers force-fed those chapters from week to week? From what I understand, they'd wait on tenterhooks for each installment.

For me, The Call Of The Wild was a corking good yarn, not work at all to read, and went by fast. It has dogs, violence, gold seeking, and dogs. I don't know how the writing could come at faster clip, or be more engaging. Additional kick in first editions was cover, and throughout, art by Philip R. Goodwin, dean of outdoor illustrators (sample at right). Only trouble with Jack London's story is that you couldn't practically translate it to film. Buck the St. Bernard-Scotch shepherd is kidnapped and put to sled-pulling in the Klondike. He reasons and schemes like a human. How's getting that over in a feature film without narration or dogs given speech? Rin-Tin-Tin managed it, with assist of titles throughout to guide our way. By such means, he could "talk" and still be credible. Lots of wonder dogs prospered during the silent era. Sound and chat hobbled their act, except as support to humans. Dialogue was largely why Buck got demoted for Twentieth-Century's 1935 adapt of The Call Of The Wild, also practical necessity of stars to make attractive a story everyone knew by name, if not content. "Jack London's Call Of The Wild," or as credits read, "Based On The Story by Jack London," lent heft to make this more than Hollywood dream-up of life in snowy raw.

So long as movies had to distort source novels, I don't know how they could do it better than 1935's Call Of The Wild. Enough spirit of the London story is here to make us know it is his inspiration that will drive action. Buck the dog is subsidiary to Gable and lead lady Loretta Young, but much of narrative turns on what Buck will do, including a most memorable portion of book and film, where he pulls a thousand pound sled. Answering the title Call takes Buck away from human company, then back, till an honest end, consistent with London, sends him permanent to woods and company of wolves. Call Of The Wild was made largely on location, first in Washington state, then closer to L.A. for outdoor work that was left. It is a better constructed job than most of what Hollywood did from literature. William Wellman as director lends usual energy and pace. I didn't feel cheated by compliance to the Code, greater enforcement in effect for six months before Call Of The Wild began shooting. Gable as "Jack Thornton" and married-to-another Young are clearly living together in their wilderness cabin, this after Gable has fallen out with, and discarded, mistress Katherine DeMille.  To this extent, Call Of The Wild plays like a precode release, and is much the better for it.

Call Of The Wild would wait to be adapted faithfully, but as things worked out, not as Call Of The Wild. Walt Disney had worked up to all-animal features from successful "True-Life Adventures" that put a bead on nature and made these thirty minute extras a highlight of 50's programs. Disney acted on conviction that wildlife could anchor a matinee or evening's entertainment, and so began a cycle of well-received features with four feet in the lead, 1957's Perri a "Fabulous First" to gamble against humans as rooting interest. True-Life featurettes had proven this could be done, and besides, at just 75 minutes, Perri could be propped by other of Disney output to fill out a show. Dogs had been most vital aspect of memorable Old Yeller, but that was as much a human drama, and not so dramatic a departure from boy-dog stories well-received before. Lassie had gone on long treks for MGM, but made and kept human contact during each. Disney would depart from movie norm by letting his Nikki, The Wild Dog Of The North go it alone for most of that 1961 film's 75 minute run-time, the dog interacting with other animals he hunts, or that prey on him. Narration supplies the context, explanation here and there of what's happening, though little of that is needed. Derived from a novel by James Oliver Curwood, so say credits, Nikki is actually truer to spirit of Jack London than other films up to that point. Disney made us embrace animals as central interest and like it. Nikki and its kind were in their way as revolutionary as full-length animation Walt had introduced back in 1937 with Snow White.

Walt Intros 9/27/64 TV Premiere of Nikki, The Wild Dog Of The North on Sunday Night NBC Program

Nikki gets lost in Canada wilds and reverts to savage nature. Can he go back to being man's best friend? There is rugged animal action to belie expectation from family-geared Disney. Nikki fights for life, and meat sustenance, on less sugar-coat terms than we'd expect. Act three suspense turns on whether he'll be rescued from a dog fighting arena to which he's tossed. Dog fights on screen, real or faked, are a touchy theme today, but Disney stages melee like blood sport it is, and we liked such raw meat fed us in 1961. My own Nikki, a stray found days after I Liberty-saw Nikki, The Wild Dog Of The North, had come in from her own wilderness laden with ticks and expectant of pups (she had five within weeks of adoption). I'd cherish Nikki for five years, until she was lost to wheels of a passing car while I was downtown watching One Million Years B.C. (the reason I've been cold on B.C. since). Nikki, The Wild Dog Of The North was obscure for years, but now streams in HD and widescreen at Amazon. My fondness for it is borne on wings of sentiment (what isn't where seen in childhood?), but of Disney live action with nature as backdrop, I'll stack Nikki high if not snug at the top. 

More of the 1935 Call Of The Wild at Greenbriar Archive HERE.