WHITE FANG, AN INCREDIBLE WOLF (TAIL) TALE
The dramatic 1991 film adaptation and how the story was changed
White Fang, by Jack London, was originally published in May 1906 by Macmillan Publishing Co. Over the years, this famed novel has been read and loved by many. In this blog post, I will take you on a brief journey through the book and the movie so that we can see how this fantastic story was represented in both. I am going to do something a bit different in this post in that we will learn all about both versions independently, then wrap it up in the conclusion section at the end.
I am doing it this way because the retelling of this wonderful classic is so vastly different from the book that it is nearly unrecognizable. Not only did Disney take great liberties with this film that they based on the novel; that is about all they did, they based it on the book. In fact, it was based on it so loosely as to be an entity in and of itself.
Well, there’s no time like the present, so let’s jump in; shall we?
Who was Jack London?
Jack London, originally named John Griffith London, was born in San Francisco on January 12, 1876. His mother, Flora Wellman Chaney, married John London Senior later that year and the family traveled all over California while John looked for work.
Young Jack was caring for himself by age fourteen and held many jobs including newspaper delivery boy, cannery worker, and seaman aboard a seal hunting ship. It is worth noting that Jack was self-educated, learning from many of the literary masters of his time and before.
In fact, when he joined the Klondike Gold Rush in 1897, he carried a copy of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and John Milton’s Paradise Lost in addition to necessary supplies such as bacon and flour. Although he later claimed to not know anyone who had published anything, he did indeed have many notable friends within the writing community of his day.
That being said, within a mere two decades, he published a whopping forty-seven books, and by 1913 was the highest paid author in the world.
White Fang is the story of a wild wolf dog puppy and his journey of wonder, pain and suffering, and finally love. The story takes place in the 1890s and begins with a pack of starving wolves, a she-wolf who acts as a decoy, and two men traveling by dog sled across Alaska with a coffin in their wake.
The she-wolf gives birth to a litter of puppies but, due to the lack of prey, only one survives. His name becomes White Fang, and this is his story.
Meet the Characters…
White Fang is a wolf hybrid that was born in a den in the wilderness of Alaska. His first memories are of his mother, his father, his siblings, and the walls of the den that kept him in. When his eyes finally open, he sees that one of those walls is bright white. It scares him at first but, as he grows older, he becomes bolder until he ventures out a bit at a time.
Food becomes even more scarce, and his siblings eventually perish, but he is strong and makes it through. This is how his life began, now let’s look at his mother.
Kiche
Kiche is White Fangs mother. She is also a wolf hybrid and runs with a wolf pack as their decoy until it’s time for her to raise a family. The first we see of her, the opening scene, she is hunting with the pack, killing whatever they could find. One day, she hears men (Bill and Henry) in the distance and leads the pack to follow the bipeds. They are slow, their dogs working hard in the snow. She begins to lure the dogs away one by one, the pack waiting to devour their domesticated cousins. With the dogs gone, the men are the only ones left for her and the pack to feed on. They do get Bill when he leaves the safety of the fire, but Henry is saved by a new group of mushers right in the nick of time.
It is after this that she mates with an old wolf named One Eye and builds her den. Eventually the noble One Eye never returns from a hunt, forcing Kiche to leave the den, and her only remaining pup, in search of food. She comes across a Lynx’s den and eats all of the kittens herself, save one. This last one she takes to her stalwart pup, White Fang. The enraged Lynx tracks them down, but they fight together and kill the Lynx as well, feasting on her flesh to sustain themselves.
Bill and Henry
Bill and Henry are two men on a mission to deliver a deceased man to McGurry (who or whatever that is). After the wolves had absconded with all the dogs, and poor Bill was no more, Henry built a scaffold from some saplings and hoisted the corpse’s casket up and out of their reach until rescue arrived.
Grey Beaver
Grey Beaver is the chief of his Indian village. He also used to own Kiche, but she ran away in search of food. As luck would have it (his luck not Kiche’s or White Fang’s), he came across them at the creek one day. He recognized his erstwhile wolf dog and called her to him. With her in tow, White Fang followed.
After his son, Mit-Sah, trains White Fang to pull the puppy sled, Grey Beaver takes him as his own dog and uses him for all sorts of things.
Grey Beaver is a hard man that is written to have no compassion and beats White Fang for any infraction – once or twice quite severely. He is also the reason that the main character ends up belonging to Beauty Smith. How did that happen? Well, we’ll see in a bit.
Lip-Lip
After his son, Mit-Sah, trains White Fang to pull the puppy sled, Grey Beaver takes him as his own dog and uses him for all sorts of things.
Grey Beaver is a hard man that is written to have no compassion and beats White Fang for any infraction – once or twice quite severely. He is also the reason that the main character ends up belonging to Beauty Smith. How did that happen? Well, we’ll see in a bit.
We meet Lip-Lip when White Fang arrives at Grey Beaver’s village. He is the leader of the puppy pack and goes out of his way to harass and bully the newcomer. Their conflict continues to grow until White Fang eventually dominates him.
Kloo-Kooch
Grey Beaver’s wife – She frequently scolds and runs White Fang from the tent and fire.
Mit-Sah
Grey Beaver’s son – Mit-Sah trains the puppy pack to pull a small sled, and eventually makes White Fang lead dog which only serves to upset both White Fang and Lip-Lip.
Beauty Smith
Beauty is an extremely ugly, cowardly, vile little man. When he sees White Fang come into town with Grey Beaver to sell some pelts, he desires to own the wolf dog and turn him into a fighter. Though Grey Beaver claims the animal is not for sale, Beauty gets the dog anyway by plying the Indian Chief with alcohol until the man is so addicted that he trades White Fang for a single bottle.
Beauty then closes White Fang up in a cage and is highly abusive to him until all the dog wants to do is fight. He becomes famous as The Fighting Wolf and makes Beauty a lot of money. That is until one day when a man named Tim Keenan shows up with his Bulldog, Cherokee. Cherokee is like no other dog that White Fang had ever fought and eventually gains the upper hand. In fact, he almost kills White Fang by cutting off his air supply until Weedon Scott comes to the rescue.
Weedon Scott
A mining expert with high connections – The first we see of Weedon is when he walks in on a dog fight and sees a Bulldog about to kill a wolf. He cannot stand it and rushes to stop it. He calls the men around him beasts and requests assistance from his dog handler, Matt. Using their combined strength of will, they free White Fang and carry him away.
Though he was paid, Beauty is not thrilled with the transaction and promises retribution.
Weedon Scott and White Fang become extremely close. So close in fact that when the man must return home, White Fang jumps through a window so that he won’t be left behind.
Judge and Alice Scott
Weedon’s parents – They don’t trust White Fang but treat him fairly until the wolf dog comes to Weedon’s rescue. After that they treat him as the hero that he is.
Beth and Mary Scott
Weedon’s sisters.
Maud Scott
Weedon’s daughter.
Weedon Scott Jr.
Weedon’ son
Collie
Weedon’s Sheep Dog – Collie is suspicious of White Fang and decides to torment him at every turn until her hatred inexplicably morphs into infatuation by the end of the story.
Dick
Judge Scott’s Deerhound – Dick is a goofy dog that initially wants to play with White Fang but soon changes his mind after being solidly rebuffed.
Jim Hall
Escaped convict – Judge Scott had tried and convicted Jim, then sent him off to prison. Jim’s parting remark to the judge was a promise of retribution. When he escaped, he did indeed go to Judge Scott’s home and found White Fang waiting for him.
Well, so we have reached the end of this version of the book, now let’s take a peek at the movie rendition.
White Fang – The Movie
White Fang, the 1991 Disney live action film adaptation of Jack London’s book was directed by Randal Kleiser and produced by Marykay Powell. The screenplay was the collaborated efforts of Jeanne Rosenberg, Nick Thiel, and David Fallon.
This is the story of a boy and his dog as they each go through their own personal rite of passage to discover the true strength and courage that is within them. It is their journey during the time when men and boys risked all in search of gold – gold that created the Alaskan Gold Rush of the 1890’s.
This remake, based on the novel, is acaction-packednd full of adventure. What is it short on is accuracy; however, that does not detract from this version’s creativity and unique style. If you were looking for a movie that told the story of White Fang the way Jake London wrote the book, then this is not for you. Why? Well, let’s take a closer look.
Here are the starring actors, the parts they played and what made this film different:
Jed – White Fang
The opening scene shows White Fang with his mother, though we don’t know who his mother is, and her part is very short lived. So short in fact that we will leave it at that.
White Fang is orphaned at an extremely young age and must make it on his own. This is naturally unrealistic since a puppy that age cannot survive without its mother or other outside assistance. He does eventually get that care in the form of Grey Beaver, but we’ll come back to that in a few seconds. Before that happens, he sees Jack when he goes to the stream for a drink of water.
So, back to White Fang and Grey Beaver. At first, the Indian chief gives young White Fang to his son (no name) and we see some training, then we see Grey Beaver leading a grown White Fang to town. Other than some other short scenes that I’ll touch on later, there really isn’t much left.
Ethan Hawke – Jack
Yes, let’s talk about Jack. Jack’s character takes the place of Weedon Scott, and he is all throughout the movie, not just toward the end as in the book. Jack comes to Alaska looking for a man named Alex Larson. You see, Alex knows where Jack’s father’s gold mine is located and Jack wants him to take him there.
Jack has to do some slick talking to get Alex to agree, but he does. It’s on this journey that Jack first sees White Fang by the water. There are a lot of other things that Jack sees and does – none of which are anywhere in the book
Klaus Maria Brandauer – Alex Larson
So, Alex and his partner, Skunker, played by Seymour Cassel, do agree to take Jack with them on there mission to return their friend, Dutch (the dead guy), to Dutch’s campsite. This was apparently their friend’s wish, and they do everything they can to make it happen. The only scene that even remotely resembles their parts in the book is when they are hunted by the wolf pack.
Skunker has the scenes that were written for Bill in that he does get eaten by the wolves, and Alex has Henry’s scenes. But, in this case he wasn’t alone like Henry was in the book and he didn’t hoist the coffin into a tree. Instead, Jack is with him when they are rescued.
What about Dutch, you ask? Well, Dutch had quite the adventure for a corpse. The sled tipped over and slid down the mountain with him, then he broke free from his coffin and glided out onto a frozen lake. When Jack went to bring him back, the ice broke and both of them fell in. It’s a good thing that he was frozen and ice floats because the three adventurers left him there while the made sure that Jack got warm and dry. Then they retrieved him, boxed him back up, and continued on their way. That’s just one example.
James Remar – Beauty Smith
The first time we see this version of Beauty Smith is near the beginning of the movie when Jack first arrives in Alaska. He is with his friends, Luke, played by Bill Moseley, and Tinker. At first, I thought that Luke was Beauty Smith because, quite frankly, Bill Moseley fit the character description given by Jack London much better than James Remar. Remar was clearly too good looking to play the part of Beauty Smith. Did the casting director not read the book first?
Anyway, so, the first act that Beauty Smith and his gang perpetrated was to rob Jack. After that, it was just one thing after another until we see him bullying Grey Beaver (the Grey Beaver in the book couldn’t be bullied) into giving White Fang to them. Then of course he abuses the wolf dog until only hate remains, then begins to pit him against other dogs. I do want to mention here that the dog who played Cherokee in the film was a Pitbull, not an English Bulldog like the book describes.
It is also worth noting that the writers included another unexpected character to this rendition…Buck. In this version, he is owned by Beauty Smith as a fighting dog, which honestly is incorrect for both White Fang and Call of the Wild. Sheesh!
And, where Beauty’s part in the book’s story ends with him getting caught trying to steal White Fang from Weedon Scott, he goes a whole lot further in the movie. The part where Beauty and his friends come to an end is very shortly after they burn down Jack’s cabin with Jack, Alex, and White Fang inside.
Susan Hogan – Belinda Casey
Belinda is another new character. But whereas Jack, Alex, and Skunker stood in for other personalities in the book, Belinda’s character was entirely created just for the film. She is a saloon owner and Alex Larson’s lover. She likes Jack and White Fang, but that’s about all we really know about her.
Pius Savage – Grey Beaver
As we’ve discussed earlier, Grey Beaver was a hard, brutal man, but not in the film. No, when we see him, he is rather timid and is easily manipulated. In fact, his character in the film is so unremarkable that I’m going to stop there and skip down to the conclusion part of this post.
Conclusion…
Alright, I’ve shown you what did and didn’t happen in the book and the movie. I’ve listed out the various characters in both so you can see who was missing, added, and/or changed. And, I’ve discussed the scenes that Disney took great liberties with. Now I want to share some insights.
While the film fell far afield from the novel, it had a certain quality about it that was rather entertaining if left on its own. There was plenty of action and spellbinding adventure, and the actors played their characters very well. In the end, I would say it’s all a matter of what you want. Do you want to see a movie that tells the original story as it was meant to be told? Or do you want to be entertained? Or, both? If your answer is to be thoroughly entertained, then I doubt you’ll be disappointed with this Disney adaptation. Oh, and, by the way, there’s also a White Fang 2: Myth of the White Wolf that brings Jack and White Fang back for more adventures.