White Fang

Based on the Jack London story, White Fang was well done. The main drawback is its violence. Lots of fighting and killing, including graphic scenes of shooting, stabbing and animals fighting. My young children (5 and 7) were upset by this. It is surprising that the video had a PG rating.

Otherwise, acting was good, cinematography was excellent. English-language dubbing was a bit slipshod and noticeable.

This movie makes an adult go back to childhood. Honesty, love or respect for animals, and justice of course is what Lucio Fulci wants to emphasize in this great movie. Yes, it contains some violent scenes but unfortunately, violence is part of our lives and children must know it to try and avoid it in the future.

Great performances from all the actors. John Steiner performs perfectly the bloody villain. Franco Nero is wonderful as always and White Fang is adorable, the dog that everybody would like to have.

The words 'Lucio Fulci' and 'children's film' aren't what you would regularly see very often, and when you add 'animals' to that, alarms bells start ringing. Now, Fulci doesn't really register on the old Italian Film Directors Who Kill Animals For Their Films List, unlike Umberto Lenzi, Ruggero Deodato, Sergio Martino and Antonio Margherriti, but these White Fang films, of which he made two, sail close to the wind. However, I'm also of the opinion that, judging by the above examples, if an Italian director did go out of their way to film an animal being hurt, they would include that in the film, and that does not happen here.

That's a long way of saying that you could probably watch these films guilt free, although this supposedly family-orientated film does start with a bunch of dogs eating a deer carcass. Thus begins Fulci's take on the classic Jack London novel about a dog who is a wolf/dog or something who never stops barking. It takes place in the Klondike in Canada during the gold rush, where a bunch of prospectors live in the mining town of Dawson, run by villain Beauty Smith (John Steiner, the best thing in the film). These unheeding miners are being ripped off by Beauty, who also runs the local bar, and keeps the alcoholic priest (Fernando Rey) in place so that no fully functioning minister can expose his nefarious actions.

Beauty therefore is miffed when a government man turns up to set up a mining commission, who also brings along writer Scot (Franco Nero), a man with principles who immediately finds himself up against Beauty, as well as giving a few of Beauty's men a sock on the jaw. A nun also arrives in town to set up a hospital, and add to that the Inuit fella who not only brings his sick son into town, but also seems to have a very protective dog, White Fang, who takes an instant dislike to Beauty's dog Satan.

There's a lot of characters to follow and a lot of plot threads, but most of it revolves around either Beauty or White Fang, so that's not too bad. Basically, a group of folk start to gather against Beauty and usually White Fang steps in to sort things out. This being a children's film, naturally this involves characters being stabbed in the gut, or White Fang either fighting a dog, or being forced to fight a bear! This film is PG, apparently! I think he killed someone as well, come to think of it.

The set design is rather outstanding for this one, so there must have been a bit of money behind the scenes for a change, as Fulci uses every chance he has to sweep the camera across the town of Dawson and the various crowds. It gives the film an epic feel and really helps bring the cold atmosphere of Canada to life.

The main attraction here is John Steiner as Beauty Smith. He's so evil he even has a pencil-moustache, although he doesn't twirl it. He's snidey, snobby, sneery, hates everything, makes passes at women, double-crosses everybody he encounters and only shows the barest of humanity when he accidentally kills someone. It's a hard call to outdo Franco Nero onscreen but Steiner does it effortlessly. Although Nero kind of gets sidelined with all the sub plots to be honest.

My son watched about two minutes of it (and of course he walked in on White Fang fighting Satan) and was disturbed by it. The two animal fights are bad enough (although it's obvious in the bear fight that someone in a bear suit was involved to a certain extent), but the knifing of someone in the guts would be too much to handle for most kids. If Fulci complained so much about being pigeonholed as a horror director, why do so many of his non-horror films end up in that category anyway? So, to sum up, I have no idea whether I liked this or not. Therefore I give it a seven, just like every other film I review.

Fulci's 'White Fang' is a struggle both in terms of its plot and audience participation, the horror maestro bringing his sadistic brand of storytelling to bare upon an overlong tale of an Inuit boy who befriends a wild wolf.

Picturesque but regularly brutal, Rey is a standout as the immoral priest, Brit expat Steiner plays his usual brand of cool, calm and ultimately sadistic villain and Italian siren Lisi features in the supporting role of a nun whose travelled to the gold fever town of Dawson to offer medical services. Also good to see the big Bavarian Raimund Heimstorf as Nero's faithful companion and French-American Carole Andre playing his somewhat tainted love interest.

The savage dog fight between White Fang and Battaglia's prize hound Satan is uncomfortable to watch even if it's perhaps not entirely what it seems, but the bear vs dog fight that soon follows is just plain barbaric.

Fulci's White Fang '73 (followed by 'Challenge' a year later) is little more than a violent spaghetti western set in the Yukon and despite some vague allusions to a positive new frontier theme, it's dark, sombre tone and bloody body count proves you can take the boy out of horror, but not horror out of the boy.

This is a follow-up to "The Call of the Wild" the year before with Charlton Heston, but there is no Charlton Heston here and also very little left of Jack London. "Beauty Smith" of the novel is a base, vulgar ooh rough hoodlum who turns Indians into alcoholics making money of it, while here he is transformed into a grotesque parody of a sophisticated gentleman inhumanly profiting on ordinary people's credulousness and greed for gold, not hesitating to deliberately ruin them all to then walk on to infest another town with corruption. The greatest scene here is the final conversion of the priest Fernando Rey, while of course the star of the film is the dog. Virna Lisi and the Indian boy are two other characters that Jack London never could have dreamed of including in an exaggerated melodrama like this, and on the whole, Italians should not meddle with Jack London. You recognize Raimund Harmstorf from "The Call of the Wild" as Charlton Heston's best friend and companion, while here he is resurrected (which Charlton Heston is not) to make another glorious partner to Franco Nero instead. It's too rough for a family entertainment, there is too little left of Jack London, the script is almost loaded with only clichés, the direction is awkward and almost pathetic, and not even Carlo Rustichelli's music is enough to save the film, although his melody theme is what you might remember from this film.