The first big screen sound adaptation of Jack London’s stirring adventure shifts Buck, the powerful St. Bernard sled dog of the novel from central character to supporting player, behind Clark Gable’s charismatic prospector and the combative woman (Loretta Young) he rescues while racing across the frozen wilds of Alaska to claim the rights to a goldmine. Variety, at the time, noted that screenwriters Gene Fowler and Leonard Praskins took a “sledgehammer” to London’s story but then “sewed it back together with a literary surgeon’s needle.” William A. Wellman takes it from there. His dramatic framing of the rugged scenery around Mount Baker, Washington—where the cast and crew fought blizzards and bitter cold—and the raucous, violent energy, here works into the stage-bound frontier towns, carrying London’s themes of instinct and survival intact.
20th Century Pictures, Inc. Director: William Wellman. Screenwriter: Gene Fowler, Leonard Praskins. Based on the novel by Jack London. Cinematography: Charles Rosher. Editor: Hanson Fritch. Cast: Clark Gable, Loretta Young, Jack Oakie, Reginald Owen, Frank Conroy. 35mm, b/w, 95 min.
