Croc-blanc

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.