Jack London (film)

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Movie
Original title Jack London
Country of production United States
original language English , Japanese
Publishing year 1943
length 92-94 minutes
Rod
Director Alfred Santell
script Charmian London ,
Ernest Pascal ,
Isaac Don Levine
production Samuel Bronston
for United Artists
music Frederic Efrem Rich
camera John W. Boyle ,
Lee Garmes
cut William Ziegler
occupation

Jack London (cross-reference The Life of Jack London ) is the title of an American adventure film by Alfred Santell from 1943, which is based on the life of the writer . Michael O'Shea plays the title role, Susan Hayward Charmian Kittredge, the woman the writer falls seriously in love with. The plot of the film is based on Charmian London's book The Book of Jack London , published in New York in 1921.

The film was nominated for an Oscar in the category “Best Film Music” .

action

Jack London, who lives in Oakland , California in 1890 and dreams of becoming a writer, quits his job in a tin factory after an employee's hands are crushed in a machine in an accident. Mammy Jenny, Jack's surrogate mother and confidante, lends him her savings so he can buy a boat and make a living as an oystercatcher in San Francisco Bay . Mammy becomes his partner in the deal, and later Scratch Nelson joins as a third partner. When there is an incident with the police that kills Scratch, Jack decides to give up oyster piracy because it's too dangerous.

Jack London's next plan is to go to sea for a period of time. Since reading is a great passion of Jack, he is raised again and again by his comrades. However, the widowed seaman Old Tom stands by him and the men quickly become good friends. But there is still Red John, a crude joker who has been harassing Jack since he set foot on the ship. In a fistfight, Jack makes it clear to him that he can definitely stand up to his feet. It is the night that Jack begins his story about a sailor whom he gives the title sea ​​wolf . Old Tom is very impressed from the beginning of the story and encourages him to continue to be literary.

When Jack finishes his adventure at sea, he enrolls at the University of California, Berkeley . When Prof. Hilliard chooses one of Jack's stories as an example of exaggerated imagination, he defends his description and explains that he had experienced the ups and downs described therein himself. He only writes about the hardships of life in the hope that it will change something. However, Jack quickly realizes that the training at Berkeley is not what he was hoping for. So he leaves the university again and goes to Dawson in Alaska , where he wants to use the Klondike gold rush for himself. One evening Jack meets the Greek singer Freda Maloof in a saloon, with whom he is very happy to talk about Lord Byron's poems. Freda falls in love with him, but this does not prevent Jack from leaving her when a lucrative deal catches his eye, with which he could earn enough money to be less dependent on physical labor. When he has achieved his goal, he retires to a remote hut with his German shepherd dog Buck and writes a novel from his dog's point of view called Call of the Wild , in which he describes the hard life at the time of the Klondike gold rush. In George Brett, Jack finds a publisher for his manuscript and also meets his secretary Charmian Kittredge. Charmian loves the way Jack writes and they quickly get closer. But then the newspaper publisher Herwin Maxwell asks Jack to report on the Boer War as a reporter . Since Charmian has vowed never to constrict Jack, she encourages him to leave.

When Jack returns, shaped by the past, he brings many presents for Charmian, who still loves him. A little later, Maxwell sends Jack away again to report on the war that is budding between Japan and Russia . Charmian is satisfied this time too and, on the contrary, promises Jack to wait for him. Jack, one of many correspondents in Japan, does not, like his colleagues, believe that Russia and Japan will soon make peace. He mistrusts the Japanese because he knows they have sent troops to Korea . When the Japanese refuse to allow correspondents to enter Korea, Jack makes a bet with reporter Dick Davis that he will be able to cross the Korean border. Disguised as a Chinese worker, he gets a passage on the "Sampan" and crosses the Yellow Sea with it . When he arrives at his destination, he experiences the Japanese capture of Korea firsthand.

In Korea Jack befriends the Oxford-trained Captain Tanaka, who treats him as a guest and casually tells him that Japan intends to take over all of Asia and ultimately the whole world. Jack succeeds in forwarding a corresponding report to Maxwell. Before long, he was arrested as a Russian spy and thrown in jail with other Russian prisoners. There Jack is horrified to see how brutal the treatment of the prisoners is, who are even withheld water. In the meantime, Dick Davis has learned of Jack's arrest and is campaigning for him with the American government. President Theodore Roosevelt then demands the writer's immediate release and ensures that Jack can actually return home.

However, to Jack's annoyance, Maxwell refuses to print his story of the Japanese invasion. Charmian, on the other hand, admires the man she loves for his courage and honesty.

production

Production notes, filming

The film was produced by Samuel Bronston Pictures, Inc. Samuel Bronston first appeared as a producer on this film. The shooting extended over the period July 14 to September 21, 1943 and took place in the Samuel Goldwyn Studios in Belden, California. Jack London's wife, Charmian, provided advice on the shoot. According to the Hollywood Reporter , cameraman Lee Garmes was originally scheduled to take additional photos. Some film scenes were shot on location in Belden Falls, California.

occupation

Actress Susan Hayward was loaned to Paramount Pictures . After leading actor Michael O'Shea had a motorcycle accident, filming had to be temporarily interrupted in late August 1943. O'Shea, known on Broadway as Eddie O'Shea, changed his name to Michael O'Shea for films. For Virginia Mayo the film marked her debut in a feature film, she had previously acted in a short film and was unnamed in a film as a choir girl. The actress was married to him from 1947 until O'Shea's death in 1973. The couple met during this film.

history

Jack London with his second wife Charmian in 1911

The film begins and ends with newsreel films showing how a ship is christened Jack London . Jack London (1876-1916) was, as shown in the film, a very prolific American writer, who mainly through his novels about the wilderness, including Call of the Wild , Wolf's Blood and Call of Gold and the multi-filmed adventure novel The Sea Wolf and his autobiographically influenced novel Martin Eden became known. London was the most successful writer in the world during his lifetime.

Although London was arrested in Korea and was released through the mediation of President Roosevelt, the background was different from that portrayed in the film. Essential stations of London's life and work are also left out. His first marriage to his childhood friend Elizabeth Bess Maddern, from which two daughters emerged, was also suppressed. His second marriage to Charmian Kittredge, however, is said to have been very happy. Charmian survived Jack, who never looked after his health very well and was only forty, by almost 40 years.

publication

The film premiered on November 24, 1943 in San Francisco, California, and immediately thereafter the film was screened generally in the United States. It was first seen in the United Kingdom in 1944, as well as in Mexico and Sweden. It was released in Portugal in 1945, in Denmark in 1947, also in Spain (Madrid) and in France in 1948. The film was also published in Argentina and Brazil. Other titles in the film: The Adventures of Jack London , The Life of Jack London and The Story of Jack London .

criticism

The Bishops' Conference of the United States (USCCB) found that Michael O'Shea gave director Alfred Santell a sincere, but also a little sedate portrayal in the title role, even if the episodic script never went beyond clichés. Some unpleasant violence and permanent stereotyping were criticized.

AW wrote in the New York Times that attempts had been made to package as much of the unstable writer's life as possible in an hour and a half. It turns out, however, that this package was less sent and filled to the point than one would have liked. Because despite the many highlights that were touched in the life of this man, who was among other things the oyster pirate, hobo , sailor, prospector and war correspondent , the film plot offers an unbalanced rendering that is filled with colorful events, but too often omits dramatic points . Based on the biography written by his second wife, the film ignores London's first marriage, touches on his early adventures, but over-emphasizes his coverage of the Russo-Japanese War as a correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle . Michael O'Shea, comparatively a newcomer to the big screen who looks like Spencer Tracy , delivers a determined and impressive performance in the title role. Susan Hayward play his lover with charm and liveliness, and Leonard Strong, Frank Craven and Louise Beavers are vivid in their respective roles. But it must also be stated that the appropriate biography about London has not yet been created.

Award

Academy Awards 1945

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Jack London (1943) see screenplay info at TCM - Turner Classic Movies (English)
  2. ↑ The 17th Academy Awards | 1945 see oscars.org (English)
  3. ↑ Jack London (1943) see original print info at TCM (English)
  4. ↑ a b c Jack London (1943) see notes at TCM (English)
  5. ↑ Jack London see archive.usccb.org (English). Retrieved February 3, 2019.
  6. ^ AW: Jack London In: The New York Times, March 3, 1944 (English). Retrieved February 3, 2019.