The Worst Film Ever

Powerful

Just perfect...

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Jack London's The Call of the Wild is a perennial educational classic which is used in public schools today across the United States. Charlton Heston's character John Thornton at first is a real hard head in the beginning as a man bound and determined to find "Old Yellow Moon" which is a gold mine fortune deep in Yukon Indian Territory. His hateful attitude towards Buck at first is intolerable but as the relationship between man and dog builds Thornton's hardheadedness gives way to love and devotion.The copyright to this movie keeps falling in and out every video labels hands just about every year or so. The transfer is horrendous as it has no doubt been transferred from a first generation video tape print over and over again to it's current DVD print. Personally I wish The Weinstien Brothers Bob and Harvey would buy out the copyright to this movie and all of it's film elements and get this movie fully restored on their Miriam Collection DVD Label in a 1 or 2 disc Special Edition featuring any extras that might actually exist somewhere in some film vault waiting to be discovered.

I'm only in the 8th grade and watched this movie in class after analyzing the actual book. The movie was not bad, but could be done better. None of the dogs matched the description in the book, and the characters were awfully mismatched. "Who is Calliope!?!" was a question many of my classmates asked themselves. The plot events were put and moved around much like a scrapbook. BTW, Call of the Wild is not a children's book!! It is actually a book with dark themes, much like most of his other books. If you don't know how to read and comprehend classic literature, I suggest you go back to reading a true children's book: The Cat in the Hat.

If you're looking for a classic piece of literature transferred to film, and you see this 1972 "version" of Jack London's classic on the kiddies' shelf at the library (no self-respecting video store should stock this thing), move on. This is, quite simply, the most incompetent film I've ever seen.I'm not sure if it's the wooden acting, the muddy dubbing, the pinking-shears editing, the outtake-quality colors, or the lack of any relationship between the plot in the book and the movie, but my only question for the people who made this Mystery Science Theatre 3000-grade garbage is, "Were you aware you were making cinematic doggy poo?" After reading the book, my seventh-grade English class was very interested in seeing a film version of the book. It didn't take long for one of the more eloquent 13 year olds to ask, "Can Jack London's family sue the people who made this movie?" I wanted to say, "Yes, a class action lawsuit!"

All in all it felt like a made for TV flick. The greatest moment of the story and other movie versions, is the prospectors crossing the lake, however, here we hear a woman scream then see a close up of her going under. Big disappointment. The director should have played that up, but with the budget the movie could have done worse.The editing was jagged and tended to distract from the flow of the movie. Chuck Heston is good in it and even if you dont like him you should watch it just to see him willingly give up his firearm in one scene. It was an enjoyable adaptation and worth the $2.99 I paid for the DVD.