Wolf Call (1939)

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Basics: Playboy son of hard-working, self-made millionaire. Likes girls, drinking and his only ambition is to do more girls and more drinking. Mother dead. (Cost of extra character unneeded for plot purposes.) Father disgusted with son. Father ships son off to "make a man of him." Son none-too-happy with sudden life-style change.Set-Up: Playboy Michael "Mike" Vance, Jr. (John Carroll)is night-clubbing in New York City with Natalie (Polly Ann Young.) Natalie is shallow. Mike doesn't care. Mike and Natalie join a scavenger hunt and break-in a pet shop to get something they require for the treasure-hunt prize. While there, Mike frees (as seen in the credits) Smokey (Grey Cloud), a police dog, and Smokey follows Mike home. The next day, Mike's father (Guy Usher), disgusted with Mike's spoiled and care-free lifestyle and hangovers, sends Mike to the Vance Canadian Radium Mine to report back whether or not the mine is worth keeping. Mike takes his new best-friend Smoky with him.Son meets Life-style changing people sequence: In Canada, Mike meets a priest, Father Devlin (Peter George Lynn) and Grogan (John Sheehan), an Irish mine worker, and when Mike gets into a fight---to prove he isn't your everyday sissy-boy playboy---with "Bull" (John Kelly), the impressed Groagn and Father Devlin befriend him. Mike meets with Carson (Wheeler Oakman), the mine superintendent, who tells Mike that the mine is losing money and should be sold to Radium Syndicate Ltd., Inc., because the cost of shipping radium is too high for a single owner. But Mike also meets the Indian maiden, Towanah (Movita)who begs him not to sell the mine, and she introduces him to her father, Dr. McTavish (George Cleveland), who is perfecting a new process of reducing radium which will make the cost of shipping it negligible. After explaining the definition of negligible to Mike, Doc McTavish also explains that Towanah is only half-Indian maiden. Towanah McTavish's mother is also dead. Actually, Towanah is half-Indian but 100% maiden. Or, claims to be.Mike-is-smitten and the-plot-thickens sequence: Carson declares that the McTavish process is no good, and then informs Mike Sr. that his son has the real scoop and is only staying in Canada because of his affair with Towanah. The down-hearted Mike Sr. decides to sell the mine.The Boy Gets Tested Sequence: When Mike and Father Devlin try to contact Senior by radio, Carson destroys the set, and Mike discovers that he is in league with Radium Syndicate Ltd., Inc. to get control of the mine so they can have a monopoly on radium and keep the prices up. They already have Madame Curie's stash. From this point forward it is open war between Mike and Carson. Mike escapes from Carson's henchmen with the help of Towanna and Father Devlin, and attempts to fly to New York to get to his father before he sells the mine. He has only twelve hours to do this. But, Carson and his henchmen (including of course, Roger Williams who was everybody's henchman)sabotage the airplane, and Mike crashes in the mountains.The Boy Comes Through (with the help of a dog) Sequence: Smokey, who has been rather quiet since leaving New York, finds Mike in the mountains, and Smokey's uncredited mate---but he has been busy off-camera---keeps the wolves away while Smokey finds Father Devlin. He and Towanah and Grogan rescue Mike, Father Devlin uses the plane's radio to contact Vance, Sr., and the mine is saved. Why Mike didn't do that before taking off in a sabotaged airplane is left unexplained, to the dismay of the nit-pickers.The Boy Becomes A Man Sequence: When Mike's grateful father comes to take him home, Mike realizes his love for the half-Indian/all Maiden Towanah and breaks his engagement with Natalie. Then, with Towanah at his side, he decides to remain in Canada and start life anew.