The Wild North

TCM just showed The Wild North today, in a version that had closed captioning added and looked as if it was digitally remastered since its last broadcast on TCM some years ago. Maybe Time-Warner will finally release the DVD of the movie in the near future. MGM in the early fifties turned out a series of high quality star vehicles, which were taken for granted then. With its small cast, The Wild North is like another movie of the period, The Naked Spur, which also deals with bringing a prisoner in. The Wild North has fine location photography in Idaho, a script that moves along and even some photographic effects courtesy of A. Arnold Gillespie. By 1956, with the forced sale of its Loew's theaters, the firing of Dore Schary as head of production and the end of contract system for studio talent, MGM went into a slow death spiral. There would be no more studio pictures like The Wild North, as MGM cut its output and filled a big chunk of its slate of releases with independent productions and movies made overseas. But at least I now have The Wild North on DVD, recorded from today's broadcast, as a souvenir from a vanished era in Hollywood history.

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).

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.

The Wild North was shot in the Boulder Mts of central Idaho, near Sun Valley Resort. My father, Clayton Stewart, was the resort's contact with MGM and for years helped directors find the right settings for movies. I can take you to the exact locations of the outdoor scenes, some of which were: along upper Big Wood River not far from Russian John Forest Service Ranger Station; along Big Wood near where the North Fork comes into the main channel; along the front of the Boulder Mountains near where Baker Creek comes in, and near Boulder Creek; up Trail Creek above Trail Creek Cabin; and on Galena Summit. Sun Valley resort supplied the trained dog teams and sleds. I was a girl when the movie was shot, and when the Sun Valley portion of the film was finished, Stewart Granger gave me the snowshoes he had used in the film, which I still have. I also have a set of black and white photos taken by Dad during the filming. This is an exciting adventure movie with a breathtaking setting and some great wilderness action.

I first saw this movie in 1952 at a theater in Chattanooga tenn when it first was released. It mesmerized me then and has done the same 10 to 20 times I have seen it since. It has a reality to it that is totally lacking in most hollywood films. And maybe the main reason its to my liking is Steward Granger. He was the narrator of the books on tape title ( call of the wild ) and he made the experience infinitely more enjoyable and exciting for me . Thanks ,my name is barney and I am 68 yrs. I hope ted Turner will release this title to dvd or vhs at some point from his film library.