Call of the Yukon (1938) User Reviews

Passions in the frozen north

[bkoganbing · 5/10 · 5 June 2014]

Three years after 20th Century Fox made a great film from Jack London's Call Of The Wild, Republic made this pale imitation of another story of passions in the frozen north in Call Of The Yukon. Jack London set a mighty high standard in these kinds of adventure novels which this one really did not meet cinematically.

Richard Arlen plays a rugged trapper who like several of the Inuit is fleeing the country as a pack of wolves has pretty much devastated the wild game around there. Not because of the lack of game to trap, but because those wolves are ready to feast on some human meat if hungry enough. Not ready to flee is Beverly Roberts who's a novelist looking for solitude to write her next book which she's decided will be a story in that locale. Arlen packs her along unwillingly and he's most unwilling to take along a menagerie that consists of her talking bird, two bear cubs and a collie who is grieving for his master.

Without getting too much into the particulars there is a human and animal story played out at the same time. That collie develops a yen for the leader of the wolf pack, a half dog half wolf. Despite the attentions later on of a fine St. Bernard. That St. Bernard belongs to Lyle Talbot who is the sweetheart of Roberts who has come up to rescue her himself. I'm not spilling how the human or the animal passions play out here.

Some interesting sequences of the frozen north worked into this film, but it's a B Republic feature so what might have been a good film from one of the big studios is just a routine programmer from Republic.

It has potential, but too bad Jack London wasn't the screenwriter.

I guess I've got too much of a sentiment for animals. I enjoyed it in spite of its weaknesses.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 16 June 2020]

It seems that Styrofoam does float because it is apparent to me that this is what they used for floating chunks of ice. This "northern" isn't what you would call anything new, but it is entertaining, and I'm sure that the pre-teen boys enjoyed it in 1938 as part of the lower half of their Saturday matinee. Richard Arlen is a trader (not a "traitor" as Beverly Roberts jokingly refers to him as), collecting furs from the hunters. She's a writer doing research for a Jack London like novel (maybe thinking that Jack was really Jacqueline), and has all sorts of wild animal pets, from a talking crow to a baby bear, and is trying to adopt the mourning dog Firefly who refuses to leave his late owner's grave site.

When wild dogs and their wolf mates attack the local Eskimo's supply of deer which they rely on for food, Arlen tries to convince Roberts it is time to get away so they are not left behind to deal with the wolves themselves. But they literally miss the boat and must make their way further up north, delayed because Roberts refuses to leave without Firefly who has found a mate in the leader of the vicious wolf pack.

If you can get past the silliness of the talking crow and the way the white men treat the natives, you might find some enjoyment in this Republic programmer. Lyle Talbot co-stars as Arlen's rival for Robert's affections. Shots of the mischievous bear cub are amusing, and the dogs portraying the wild pack are well trained. The music at times just gets a bit too melodramatic which somehow seems inappropriate for the scenes it is used in. Roberts just seems a bit too made up to be a woman roughing it in very Northern Canada. Films like this that end up in the public domain are most likely never going to be restored to a pristine condition, so audiences should be aware that while the sound is decent, the picture isn't as sharp as other films from Republic or Monogram that I've seen on classic movie channels.

Jack London rip-off

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 8 November 2019]

CALL OF THE YUKON is, unsurprisingly, a B-movie rip-off of the Jack London classic CALL OF THE WILD, another story of dogs and wolves in the frozen north. Richard Arlen headlines the cast, playing a trapper who falls in love with a novelist doing research in the wintry area. The film is an animal lover's delight insofar as there's a lot of tame creatures on show as well as wild, and the dogs get to show the usual heroism and bravery of spirit.

You'll be grateful that it's quite a short film

[napol3onsolo · 2/10 · 3 January 2010]

Call Of The Yukon is a low-grade film from a cheap studio. The acting is unbelievable and the plot does very little to sustain one's interest. In fact I'd say the canine performers add more to the film than the humans. Yet if you look past this then you may perhaps enjoy the film simply for its location shots of the frozen north and its depiction of wildlife, if that's your kind of thing.

The one thing that I thought was clever in the writing was how the behaviour of the dogs in the film reflect the attitudes of the main characters. But, this did little to save what was really just a hackneyed attempt at an adventure film. I was so grateful when this cheesy and sloppily chopped together film ended. And not a minute too soon...

Can't you think of anything but killing!

[sol1218 · 7/10 · 31 December 2008]

***SPOILERS*** After her master game warden Francis Graham died on the way to the little Yukon town of Topek his loyal dog the collie Firefly just about gave up on life. Firefly spent hours at a time never leaving her master's graveside until she came in contact with the mix breed, half wolf half dog, alpha wolf Swift Lightning.

It was during the cold and bitter winter of 1937-38 that Swift Lightining lead his pack of hungry wolves in and around Topek killing off and eating all the available game, a herd of caribou, making it impossible for the local native and Canadian and American trappers to survive there. With everyone in town going up north to the town and city of Nenana and Faribanks young American writer Jean Williams opted to stay only to change her mind when the both cold and pack of wolves started to close in on her cabin.

With only the American trapper Gaston Rogers, who stayed behind, to help Jean travels up north to Nenana and to civilization where the two got unexpected help from both Firefly and her now mate for life the ferocious wolf/dog Swift Lightning. At first Gaston was not at all that friendly with the two canines whom he looked at as food, when both his and Jean's rations ran out, and nothing else. It was later when the two mutts proved how valuable they were in saving both his and Jean's lives that Gaston started to have second thoughts about his fellow, in the Yukon, living creatures and four footed friends. That's when Gaston himself risked his life in returning the favor by going out in the woods during an drenching spring downpour and rescuing Swift Lightning's, who was trapped under a fallen three, life.

The movie shows how in a place like the inhospitable Yukon man and animal have to cooperate with each other in order for both to survive. Both Swift Lightning and Firefly showed the more then willing to shoot them down Gaston that they are indeed man's best friend. Jean who was at first in loved with the far less macho Hugo Henderson saw in Gaston, who for a time she couldn't stand, a man willing to change his ways when confronted with the truth in that wolves, like Swift Lightning, can be as, if not more, dependable as any fellow trapper and hunter in the wild.

It stars Richard Arlen and Lyle Talbot and it's a B-movie....need I say more?

[planktonrules · 1/10 · 20 November 2019]

Lyle Talbot and Richard Arlen were good actors. They both made a few major pictures, such as "Three on a Match" and "Wings". But they also both made a ton of cheap and crappy B-movies...and Talbot even starred in the god-awful "Plan 9 From Outer Space". So, when I saw it was a B-movie with BOTH of them starring in it, I knew it had to be incredibly bad...sight unseen.

The film consists mostly of stock footage (a LOT of stock footage) strung together with a few studio-bound scenes as well. The sum effect is pretty cheap...even for a B. The story is set in the frozen north and concerns a wolf infestation that threatens to eat up the game...and leave the natives hungry. Along for the ride are a plucky white lady and a talking crow. Ironically, the B-movie I watched just before this was, believe it or not, all about a detective searching for a talking crow ("Find the Blackmailer")!

So is it any good? Of course not! It has a talking crow and that never is a good thing! Plus, while it might work if you use a little stock footage....but about 40% of the film appears to be exactly this! Also, while plucky and determined women are a good thing in real life, in the movie she really just seems headstrong and stupid...insisting on wintering over with the locals while they face starvation and have no food to share. Huh??? Overall, cheap and dull....and those are probably two of the nicer things I can say about the film!!

Dreadful. Just Dreadful.

[sddavis63 · 1/10 · 30 January 2013]

My first thought was "what's with the name?" When I hear "The Yukon," I think of the Yukon Territory, which is in Canada. This was set in Alaska. But then I remembered that a portion of the Yukon River is in Alaska, so I'll grant that one. Still, what we have here is a very, very bad movie.

It looks grainy and cheap. Maybe it's grainy because of age, but that doesn't explain the cheap part - and lots of movies made in the 1930's have stood up very, very well. This one doesn't. The acting is dull and lifeless for the most part, and really for a significant chunk of the film,. this seems more interested in being a cutesy animal film, with a talking crow and bear cubs playing, with a musical score that more often than not really didn't seem appropriate to what was supposed to be a 1930's version of an action-adventure.

The story revolves around Jean and Gaston (Beverly Roberts and Richard Arlen) trying to find their way out of the Alaskan wilderness and having to deal with a pack of wild dogs while doing so. Meanwhile, a domestic collie named Firefly becomes a mate to the leader of the wild pack. The story of the dogs really parallelled what became the point of the last 20 minutes or so of the film, as Jean is forced to choose between the rough and tumble Gaston and the civilized and cultured Hugo (Lyle Talbot) - because Firefly has to choose between life as a wild dog and life with humans. OK. That was pretty obvious once Gaston and Hugo got into their fight over Jean. But that one point that worked really can't do anything to save this. It truly is a dreadful movie. (1/10)

"All right, mush!" -- More realism than one might think

[evening1 · 5/10 · 15 March 2024]

Having just returned from my first trip to Alaska, which included a visit to Nenana, 86 years after this film's release, I'm struck by how much I recognized in this production.

Our heroine, Jean (Beverly Roberts), writes her memoir in a snow-blanketed log cabin, of which many remain in the Alaskan interior. Everywhere on the road to Denali one marvels at the pyramidical mountains of this movie, with their elevation-defying spruce and white birch. We see hen-sized ravens about, and, in Denali at least, a mush team is still the best way to get around or accomplish a job.

"Call of the Yukon" has some silliness in its animal dramas, but don't let talking crows or canines put you off. The evolving exchange between Jean and Gaston (Richard Arlen), a trapper with a caveman mentality -- "You're not walking out on me with a 'thank you'" -- eventually does capture interest.

The best part of this film is its excursion to Nenana, which today looks like a town that time forgot. I saw the famous tripod on the river and learned of the decades-old lottery in which folks from around the world place bets (just like in the movie) on when the river ice will break and the waterway flow again. I hear the pot is up to $300,000!

A Man and Woman Fighting for Survival in the Frozen Alaskan Frontier

[Uriah43 · 5/10 · 31 March 2024]

This film begins with a young writer by the name of "Jean Williams" (Beverly Roberts) working on a novel about the Alaskan wilderness while living with an Eskimo tribe in a remote village. Although she is quite content with her present circumstances, one troubling bit of concern involves a pack of wild dogs and wolves which are terrorizing the area and killing off all of the reindeer which the Eskimos rely on for their food. So much so that they all decide to leave their village one morning in search of better hunting grounds--leaving her all alone in her cabin. And because of this, the wild dogs quickly begin to advance toward the village in search of whatever they can find. It's at this time that a fur trapper named "Gaston Rogers" (Richard Arlen) appears and offers to help her evacuate with him on his dog sled. To that effect, although she doesn't particularly like Gaston, she agrees to go with him. Making things more difficult, however, is the fact that several other animals also follow them--with the worst one being a wild dog named Swift Lightning which has a reputation for being excessively vicious. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that, although some people might assume this film is a cheap knockoff of the more popular "The Call of the Wild" by Jack London, the fact of the matter is that it is based primarily on another novel titled "Swift Lightning-A Story of Wildlife Adventure in the Frozen North" by James Oliver Curwood. So, they are completely different in that respect. Even so, it does feature a number of certain similarities due in large part to the overall location. That being said, although I don't consider this film to be bad necessarily, if I had I had a choice to watch this movie or the 1935 version of "The Call of the Wild", I think I would take the latter since it had better cinematography and acting. But that's just me. In any case, it passed the time fairly well, and I have rated it accordingly. Average.

Mixture of nature film and human adventure...

[dwpollar · 4/10 · 16 January 2022]

1st watched 1/15/2022 - (Dir-B. Reaves Eason): Mixture of nature film and human adventure that somehow becomes a love triangle. This movie is based on a book named after the wolf leader in the story, "Swift Lightning" - so you kind of expect some of the story to revolve around him, but it starts as a headstrong woman writer, played by Beverly Roberts, is staying in a cabin when the locals even leave because they are scared of the wolves attacking and terrorizing the area. Than a rough trapper trying to get the writer to leave misses his boat, and is forced to stick around and help the woman survive. They travel to a little more inhabited area and run across a trader friend of the woman, who also tries to sway her to leave - starting a kind of fight over the woman. The nature story revolves around a dog named Firefly who lost his owner thru death, and won't leave the grave until she runs into "Swift Lightning" and they become attached. We see adventures involving the 2 animals plus a couple of playful bears and a talking crow. The mix of the nature footage and the human story are actually kind of too much. I feel like they should have focused on one or the other for a better movie. An interesting early film with cool Alaskan photography, but not a completely worthwhile venture as a movie.