The Wild North

I am surprised that no videos or DVDs have been made of this movie. Certainly one of the best Stewart Granger movies I have ever seen (second only to Scaramouche).

I first saw The Wild North when I was just fresh back from Korea in 1953. I was so impressed by the story and the scenery that I returned to the little movie theater down the block to see it three more times before it was replaced on the bill. The action is terrific and the scene where the wolves attack Wendell Corey and Stewart Granger makes your heart pound. The setting is breath taking and the ending is perfect. The Movie makers paid great attention to detail, right down to the Tea Cartons and the Tobacco packages. I loved it. If they ever release it again, I'll see it for the fifth time.

I enjoyed both Corey and Granger performance. However, I especially liked Corey's strong character performance in "The Wild North". Corey's understated character contrasts well with the mountain man persona of Granger. In later years, Corey always was cast in submissive, retiring roles which really did not suit him. Corey projects a strong 'quiet' type of presence and with a high level of integrity. Cinema photography and accuracy is especially fabulous in this movie. No fake Hollywood sets for this movie.

The story builds as the character development becomes apparent. Viewers begin to identify and feel for the characters making the story even more vivid and realistic. The best compliment I can pay this movie is that it allowed me to feel like I was up North with them during the trek!

What awesome scenary provides the setting for this classic 1950's formulated drama! Solid performances by all actors.

It does seem like a scene vanished from the Turner classic version that I was watching. The jump in the film between scenes early in the movie seemed out of place. And, once you discovered a certain event had occured it seemed unlikely that this important scene was on the cutting room floor.

An adventures movie which predates some aspects of "river of no return" (Mitchum rebuilding a family with Monroe and a young son) by three years; the underlying subjects is the necessity for man to find himself a family : that's the trapper realizes when the film begins; a thing that the duty-above -all Javert-like longs for all along the story (he admits he's got nobody ,and he envies his prisoner who's got somebody waiting for him,were she a half-breed in a shack )

This adventures movie is at least as much a psychological drama : the events (the wolves,the meeting with two lost men) take a back seat to Granger/Corey relationship , a strange love /hate relationship ,a mutual admiration and a cat and mouse play:but who's the cat ? The pictures on location are splendid indeed and this odyssey looks like an initiatory journey ,mainly for the mountie.

Like Marilyn Monroe in "river of no return ", Cyd Charisse is a chanteuse in the first sequence ;and there's also a brat ,who,although no part of the family ,sides with the trapper who urges the shopkeeper to give him chocolate.