The Call of the Wild

film by Wellman [1935]

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July 21, 2026

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The 1935 film The Call of the Wild, directed by William Wellman, stars Clark Gable as John Thornton. This adaptation of Jack London's novel focuses on the relationship between Thornton and the sled dog Buck, a mix of St. Bernard and Scotch collie. The story is set during the Klondike gold rush of the 1890s, where Buck is stolen from his comfortable home and forced into the harsh life of a sled dog in the Yukon. The film highlights Buck's struggle to adapt to the wild and his eventual devotion to Thornton, while also exploring themes of survival and instinct.123

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William Wellman
Films of the early to mid-1930s
…films from the mid-1930s were The Call of the Wild (1935), a major box-office success that starred Gable as the Yukon-conquering hero of Jack London’s novel of the same name; The President Vanishes (1934), a cautionary political tale that is memorable chiefly for providing one of Rosalind Russell’s earliest screen…
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…films from the mid-1930s were The Call of the Wild (1935), a major box-office success that starred Gable as the Yukon-conquering hero of Jack London’s novel of the same name; The President Vanishes (1934), a cautionary political tale that is memorable chiefly for providing one of Rosalind Russell’s earliest screen…
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Clark Gable
Stardom: It Happened One Night, Mutiny on the Bounty, and San Francisco
…played Jack London’s hero in Call of the Wild for Twentieth Century Fox; during filming he had an affair with Loretta Young, and she had a daughter later that year, though Gable was not publicly revealed as the father until well after his death. He reluctantly accepted the role of…
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…played Jack London’s hero in Call of the Wild for Twentieth Century Fox; during filming he had an affair with Loretta Young, and she had a daughter later that year, though Gable was not publicly revealed as the father until well after his death. He reluctantly accepted the role of…
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