The Call of the Wild is a vibrant story of Buck, a big and kindhearted dog, a crossbreed between a St. Bernard and a Scotch Collie, whose carefree life of leisure was suddenly upset when he was stolen from his home in Santa Clara County, California and deported up north, to be sold in Skagway, Alaska, and taken further north, to Dawson City, Yukon, during the late 1890s Klondike Gold Rush, when strong sled dogs were in high demand. As a newcomer to the dog team delivery service - and not before long their front-runner - Buck, a dog like no other, who had been spoiled, and who had suffered, but he could not be broken, is having the time of his life. Forced to fight to survive, eventually taken by his last owner, John Thornton, to proximity of the Arctic Circle, somewhere between Yukon and Alaska, he progressively depends on his primal instincts, sheds the comforts of civilization and responds to "the call of the wild", as master of his own.Written by
Davor Blazevic 1959 <davor.blazevic@yahoo.com>
The message on the telegram that Perrault receives has a uniformity and cleanness that demonstrates that this was produced not on a typewriter, but by a modern laser printer. Also, the telegram's text uses a modern Courier font not present on typewriters of that period. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
John Thornton:
[narrating]
It was in all the papers at the time. Men searching in the Artic had found a yellow metal. Gold. A mad fever spread as far as word can travel, and thousands more rushed to the North to try their luck. These men needed dogs. Big dogs with strong muscles to pull their sleds.
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Crazy Credits
This is the first film released under the 20th Century Studios banner (previously known as 20th Century Fox).
Thus, there is a new 20th Century Studios logo, which is an updated version of the classic Fox logo. See more »
Alternate Versions
Prior to re-shoots, Mercedes, Charles, and the remaining dog team die (off-screen) on the broken-up river; only Hal survives to return to Dawson and confront John Thornton in the Argonaut saloon. (Paraphrased: "I lost everything because of you: my dogs... my sister...") Despite successful test screenings, studio heads changed this to Hal saying, "My dogs ran off" -- indicating the team and (one assumes) Mercedes and Charles survived -- in an attempt to keep children from being upset. See more »
I cried over this story when I was a boy and I got teary eyed as an old man watching the movie.