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Harrison Ford's version of Jack London's finest novel is not as beautiful as Ken Annakin's from 1972, but Harrison Ford makes a better and more credible John Thornton than Charlton Heston, who was not happy about his film himself. There are many fantastic moments here, the relationship between Buck and Thornton is made more explicit and sincere in close intimacy, and the story is much embroidered and expanded. A horrible villain is also introduced (mising in the novel), and the wildlife sequences are simply terrific, especially Buck's leading his sledge and pack out of the dangers of an avalanche; so technically superior to the 1972 film it also almost reaches the esthetic standard of Annakin's more overwhelming version.

This must be one of the best films of the Korean war ever made. Tom Payne is ususally reliably good, but here he is excellent. The whole character of the film is more than realistic, it is like having been made in the middle of the war with the war conditions constantly present everywhere. And the story is fantastic. It is about a bottle of whiskey that Tom receives from his girl before going out to war in 1942 with the instruction to use it at an appropriate occasion, many such occasions rise, but every time he decides to save it for a more special occasion. After the world war he is posted in Korea, where the Korea war offers atrocious hardships. He still has his bottle, but as conditions constantly grow worse he keeps saving it for a more significant moment. Thus he keeps saving it all the way to 1950. He brings it out occasionally as a proper moment has come, but each time he puts it down in the bag again to save it for an even better occasion. Finally he reaches safety on the coast after a long difficult march across the mountains, the remnants of his plutoon is saved and they are among their own with the marines, and the occasion seems to be at hand. He wants to share it with the survivors and offers it to one after another who really would need it, while his girl is still waiting for him at home...

Kim Stanley didn't make many films, but the very few she did make are and remain the more remarkable and outstanding. This was her first film made when she was almost already 40, and you can't deny that it must be autobiographical to the most of its content. It is the story of a girl, unwanted by her parents, who grows up to be an ambitious young lady with two marriages, one daughter whom she rejects for the sake of her career, as she becomes a prominent movie star in Hollywood, with everything you associate with that kind of career, booze, nervous breakdowns, hysterics, scandals and so on, Grace Kelly leaving Hollywood with the impressions that it was the most horrible place of inhumanity, while Kim Stanley tries to sort things out and tries to find a momentary relief and comfort in religion, returning to her mother's sanctimonious piety, which leads her to a total rejection of the idea of God. The end is not told here, but was there ever any Hollywood enthroned queen of the cinema who did not break down? I can only think of a very few singular exceptions: Greta Garbo, who left her career in time, Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davis, Gina Lollobrigida and Sophia Loren, who is still going strong. The film is a devastating unmasking of the career trap of Hollywood, leaving too many great stars to finish off in great tragedies.