Wild Geese Calling

In a whirlwind courtship, John Murdock (Henry Fonda) marries Sally (Joan Bennett). However, when John's old friend Blackie (Warren William) arrives, Sally is noticeably unimpressed. She knows that Blackie is a thoroughly rotten sort...with a girl in every port and all sorts of less than legal schemes. But she's hesitant to tell John, as she and Blackie had once been a number...and she doesn't want to tell him about her sordid past. So, grudgingly, she agrees to go to Alaska with the pair and supposedly strike it rich. However, everyone watching the film KNOWS that some bad is going to come of all this!

There were two things I had a hard time believing in this one. First, that Henry Fonda could play a lumberjack!! Second, that his character could be as stupid and believe the worst about his wife despite little evidence she's done him wrong. He was actually a very weak character....and I could understand why Fonda wasn't particularly proud of this film. Now this isn't to say it's a bad movie...but he is definitely given little with which to work. And, having Blackie being a disreputable sort was a hilarious cliche! But it is modestly entertaining and a decent time-passer...but not much more.

A great movie based on an excellent book.. John Murdock started as an itinerant cowboy throughout the West, but begins to settle down when he meets and marries Sally. She puts up with his wandering until they start for, but never reach the goldfields. Several great supporting characters enliven the plot as time and experience go on. The closing episodes make a fitting end to John's wanderlust. The setting in the Pacific Northwest and Canada/Alaska coastal country just adds on to all the other elements of the film.

The movie is clean and entertaining and well worth watching---IF you can find it!

Well as soon as i saw this film henry fonda became my favourite actor, he exceeds with this role, playing it better than i imagined.

The plot is about a man who goes on a search for gold, this happens to be my favourite story line. I loved this film, joan bennet who played john murdocks wife as sally also plays a good role. WATCH IT!!

Henry Fonda quits his job. No, he tells his boss, he's not going to work for a competitor. When he hears the Wild Geese Calling he has to follow them. In this case, it's to Seattle, where he's to meet Warren William. However, once in Seattle and while waiting for William to show up, he meets dancehall girl Joan Bennett. They fall in love, William shows up with Barton Maclane close behind him with a shotgun, and it's off to Alaska for the gold rush, with Bennett along.

What Fonda doesn't know is that Miss Bennett is an old girlfriend of William.... but Maclane does. That's what this movie's conflicts are about: the past versus the present, truth versus lies, loves versus wanderlust. The excellent cast does pretty well in this potboiler directed by John Brahm, although Maclane is curiously out of touch with his lines. Still, there's lots of other interesting performers to look at, including Iris Adrian, Russell Simpson, and Stanley Andrews, and you can always look at Lucien Ballard's shots of the open sky around Lake Arrowhead. It's pretty much a potboiler, but with a cast and crew that make it work.

Wild Geese Calling is one of those films that Henry Fonda made for 20th Century Fox after he was hammer-locked into signing a studio contract with them in order to get cast in The Grapes Of Wrath. It's not a bad action/adventure film about a man who marries the former girlfriend of his best friend.

Best friend Warren William is the best thing about Wild Geese Calling. He's one charming rogue who loves them and leaves them in every city from San Francisco to Nome in the Pacific Northwest. But these women apparently never think ill of him. Whatever his secret if he could bottle and sell it he'd be richer than Donald Trump.

One of those girls he loved and left is Joan Bennett and it's she that Fonda marries. Both William and Fonda are infected by the wanderlust thing, it's always going to be a better opportunity over the next horizon. The title in fact refers to the flight of the wild geese which seems to inspire them. Ironically those 'wild geese' follow strict flight patterns and are hardly nomads. But the symbolism is there, rather heavy handedly emphasized with shots of wild geese flying interspersed in the story.

Fonda and Bennett follow William to Alaska where Fonda learns two things first about Bennett's former relationship and secondly that Bennett is quite pregnant.

Some of the shots with Fonda going out in the winter storms to get a doctor are nicely done. I think that Darryl Zanuck might have recycled some of the footage from Way Down East. No matter, it's well used.

Second best in the cast is Ona Munson who did a bit of recycling of her own with a different take on her famous Belle Watling character from Gone With The Wind. When they can't get a doctor for Bennett, Munson pinch hits and delivers.

Wild Geese Calling is not a bad film. But Henry Fonda in his memoirs makes it abundantly clear he hated all the studio projects from 20th Century Fox he was assigned to until The Oxbow Incident.