Psycho's Movie Reviews #323: Never Cry Wolf (1983)

Never Cry Wolf is a 1983 American drama film directed by Carroll Ballard. The film is an adaptation of Farley Mowat's 1963 autobiography of the same name and stars Charles Martin Smith as a government biologist sent into the wilderness to study the caribou population, whose decline is believed to be caused by wolves, even though no one has seen a wolf kill a caribou. The film also features Brian Dennehy and Zachary Ittimangnaq. It was the first Disney film to be released under the new Walt Disney Pictures label. The film was released on October 7, 1983 for a limited distribution, and in the regular theatres on January 27, 1984.

The film is also notable for being the first Walt Disney Pictures film to feature brief full-frontal male nudity, as well as scenes with bare buttocks.

The narration for the film was written by Charles Martin Smith, Eugene Corr and Christina Luescher.

Plot

The young, naïve Canadian biologist Tyler is assigned by the government to travel to the isolated Canadian Arctic wilderness and study why the area's caribou population is declining, believed to be due to wolf-pack attacks; amongst his orders to study them, he is also given a gun and required to kill one wolf and examine its stomach contents. Tyler receives a baptism of fire into bush life with a trip by bush plane piloted by "Rosie" Little. After landing at the destination, Rosie leaves Tyler in the middle of a sub-zero frozen Arctic lake. Tyler is at a loss of what to do about his situation until he is rescued by a traveling Inuit named Ootek, who transports him and his gear off the ice and builds a shelter for him.

Alone, Tyler divides his days between research and survival, while nights are fraught with nightmares of wolf attacks upon him. He soon encounters two wolves—which he names George and Angeline, who have pups, and discovers they seem as curious of him as he is of them. He and the wolves begin social exchanges, even urine-marking their territories, producing trust and respect between them. Noticing that they have not eaten any caribou and only mice, he begins a side experiment of eating only mice for protein sustenance.

Another Inuit named Mike encounters Tyler, sent by Ootek for companionship. Mike knows English and Inuit, translating between Ootek and Tyler. Ootek, the elder, is content and curious about Tyler, while the younger Mike seems not only more reserved but unhappy with the Inuit way of life, confessing to Tyler his social apprehensions, this is mainly due to the fact that Mike is missing nearly all his teeth as well as telling Tyler about the time he met a girl and how she was comfortable with him until he smiled. Tyler discovers that Mike is a wolf hunter, killing for pelts to sell to make a living. Tyler demonstrates a trick he has learned: by playing certain notes on his bassoon, he can imitate a wolf howl, calling other wolves in.

Autumn nears, and Tyler hears that the caribou are migrating south, which will provide an opportunity for him to study the concept his superiors want to confirm. Ootek takes Tyler on a three-day hike to where the caribou will be. The caribou show up as predicted and Tyler observes the wolves make several unsuccessful attacks. Tyler helps drive caribou towards the pack, which soon takes one down. Tyler takes a bone and samples the marrow, discovering the dead caribou to be diseased. It confirms that the wolves are not ruthless killers but rather their predation kills off only the weaker caribou.

One day, Tyler encounters Rosie with two hunter-guests, making plans to exploit the area's resources. Rosie insists on flying out Tyler, who refuses. Rosie then offers to extract Tyler from his research campsite in three days, the time it will take Tyler to hike back.

Tyler returns to the base to find things very still. He ventures into the wolves' territory and goes into their den, only to find the pups cowering in fear and the two wolves nowhere in sight. Rosie's aircraft approaches outside. Believing that Rosie killed George and Angeline, Tyler shouts at Rosie to leave, then shoots at Rosie's plane, which makes him fly away.

Tyler goes back to his camp to find Mike, whose nervous demeanour causes Tyler to suspect that it was Mike, not Rosie, who killed the two wolves. Mike confirms Tyler's suspicions by smiling with a full set of new dentures and leaves, hiking for home.

Some time later, as the first snow begins to fall, Tyler plays the wolf call on his bassoon, bringing in other wolves from George and Angeline's pack. He reflects on his time in the wilderness and how he may have helped bring the modern world to this place. The narration implies that Tyler will return to civilization and recover from his experiences here. Ootek has returned, and in the final scene he and Tyler break camp and trek across the fall tundra to the south, enjoying each other's company, along with the words of an Inuit song that Tyler translates:

I think over again my small adventures, my fears. Those small ones that seemed so big. For all the vital things I had to get and to reach. And yet there is only one great thing, the only thing: To live to see the great day that dawns and the light that fills the world.

Production

The fundamental premise in Never Cry Wolf is that life in the Arctic seems to be about dying: not only are the caribou and the wolves dying, but the indigenous Inuit people and their way of life as well. The animals are losing their habitat and the Inuit are losing their land and their resources while their youth are being seduced by—and pressured into—modernity. They are trading what is real and true, dicing away their time-honoured traditions for the perceived comforts and securities of the modern world.

Never Cry Wolf blends the documentary film style with the narrative elements of drama, resulting in a type of docudrama. It was originally written for the screen by Sam Hamm but the screenplay was altered over time and Hamm ended up sharing credit with Curtis Hanson and Richard Kletter.

Smith, who had previously worked with Disney on films such as No Deposit, No Return and Herbie Goes Bananas, devoted almost three years to Never Cry Wolf. Smith wrote, "I was much more closely involved in that picture than I had been in any other film. Not only acting, but writing and the whole creative process." He also found the process difficult. "During much of the two-year shooting schedule in Canada's Yukon and in Nome, Alaska, I was the only actor present. It was the loneliest film I've ever worked on," Smith said.

Filming Locations

The film locations for Never Cry Wolf included Nome, Alaska, the Yukon Territory, and Atlin, British Columbia, Canada.

Release/Reception/Box Office

When Never Cry Wolf was released, a review in the Los Angeles Times called the film, "... subtle, complex and hypnotic triumphant filmmaking!"

Brendon Hanley of Allmovie also liked the film, especially Smith's performance, and wrote, "Wolf's protagonist wonderfully played by the reliable character actor Charles Martin Smith... The result is a quirky, deceptively simple meditation on life."

Ronald Holloway, film critic of Variety magazine, gave the film a mostly positive review, and wrote "For the masses out there who love nature films, and even those who don't, Carroll Ballard's more than fits the commercial bill and should score well too with critical suds on several counts."

Some critics found the premise of Never Cry Wolf a bit hard to believe. Vincent Canby, film critic for The New York Times, wrote, "I find it difficult to accept the fact that the biologist, just after an airplane has left him in the middle of an icy wilderness, in a snowstorm, would promptly get out his typewriter and, wearing woollen gloves, attempt to type up his initial reactions. Canby added, the film was "a perfectly decent if unexceptional screen adaptation of Farley Mowat's best-selling book about the author's life among Arctic wolves."

The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 100% based on reviews from eighteen critics, with an average rating of 7.7 out of 10.

Budget $11 million

Box office $27.6 million

My Review

{I love Wolves; *Howls* 🐺}

This fictionalization of the Farley Mowat book about his Arctic adventures studying wolves is amazingly enough perhaps the most controversial film Disney studios ever made. How sad is that? The reasons for the controversy would seem minor: first, the movie is not entirely true to Mowat's book; two, it's lightly plotted; and three, a man is seen running around naked in the tundra. To which I say, so what? so what? and gee, how offensive. (Maybe they should have clothed the wolves.)

The latter complaint is the major reason for all the ranting by some "reviewers." To them a Disney film showing human nakedness seems a sacrilege and they want their bowdlerized world returned to them, and they want Disney censured and made to promise never to do anything like that again! The complaint that there wasn't enough tension in the film is also off base since this is a contemplative, even spiritual film, not a slick thriller. People with sound-bite attention spans who need to mainline exploding cars and ripped flesh to keep them interested need not apply.

The criticism that Director Carroll Ballard's film is not entirely true to the book is legitimate, but I would point out that movies are seldom if ever entirely true to their source material. A film is one kind of media with its particular demands while a book is another. It is impossible to completely translate a book into a movie. Something is always inevitably lost, but something is often gained. Here the cinematography and the beautiful musical score by Mark Isham are fine compensations.

The acting by Charles Martin Smith as "Tyler" (Farley Mowat) and Brian Dennehy as Rosie, the exploitive redneck bushpilot, and Samason Jorah as Mike the compromised Inuit (who sells wolf skins for dentures) and especially Zachary Ittimangnaq as Ootek, the quiet, wise man of the north are also pluses. Note how compactly the main issues of the film are exemplified in these four characters. Indeed, what this film is about is the dying of a way of life, not just that of the wolves, but of the Inuit people themselves who are losing their land and their resources while their young people are being seduced away from what is real and true and time-honoured for the glittering trinkets of the postmodern world. This is a story of impending loss and it is as melancholy as the cold autumn wind that blows across the tundra.

What I think elevates this above most nature films is first the intense sense of what it would be like for a lower forty-eight kind of guy to survive in a most inhospitable wilderness, and second the witty presentation of some of the scenes. Ballard works hard to make sure we understand that it is cold, very cold and desolate and that there are dangers of exposure and weather and just plain loss of perspective that have killed many a would-be adventurer and might very well kill Tyler. I think it was entirely right that near the end of the film we get the sense that Tyler is going off the deep end emotionally, that the majestic and profoundly melancholy experience has been too much for him.

Tyler begins as a greenhorn biologist dropped alone onto a frozen lake amid snow covered mountains rising in the distance so that we can see immediately how puny he is within this incredibly harsh vastness. The following scene when Ootek finds him and leaves him and he chases Ootek until he drops, and then Ootek saves him, gives him shelter, and leaves again without a word, was just beautiful. And the scenes with the "mice" and running naked among the caribou and teaching Ootek to juggle were delightful. The territorial marking scene was apt and witty and tastefully done. (At least, I don't think the wolves were offended.)

This movie was not perfect, however. For one thing, those were not "mice" that Tyler found his tent infested with. I suspect they were lemmings posing for the cameras. Those who have seen the film about the making of this movie undoubtedly know what they were; please advise me if you do. Also the "interior" of Tyler's tent was way too big to fit into the tent as displayed. Also it would be important from a nutritional point of view for Tyler to eat the "mice" raw as the wolves did! (The actual creatures that Mowat ate I assume were mice.) If Tyler had to exist purely on roasted and boiled rodent for many months, he would encounter some nutritional deficiencies. Still, eating a diet of the whole, uncooked mouse would be sustaining whereas a diet of lean meat only would not. (Add blubber and internal organs for an all-meat diet to work.) Incidentally, the Inuit people get their vitamin C from blubber and the contents of the stomachs of the animals they kill.

Nevertheless, the movie quickly improves as Tyler proves to be made of tougher stuff than we initially assumed. And from thereon this is an amazing film. Hauntingly beautiful, insightful, profound, philosophical, at times educational, well-written and, above all else, soothingly hypnotic. The plot is in no hurry. The movie follows Tyler around and just sits right next to him as he studies the wolves, observing both him and the wildlife.

Still, the greatest aspect of this movie, the one that truly works, is the technical side of things, especially the mood that is created through cinematography, music and careful narration by Smith. There's dialogue between Tyler and the Inuit's, but by far the greatest scenes in this movie are the silent ones, where the visuals and the music are allowed to fill your consciousness and transport you to an older era, where the laws of men have never existed. I swear that if nature ever had a soundtrack, it would prominently feature the score of this film.

Where were the mosquitos and the biting flies that the tundra is infamous for?

Since this movie appeared almost twenty years ago, the public image of the wolf has greatly improved and wolves have been reintroduced to Yellowstone Park. I think everybody in this fine production can take some credit for that. 8.7/10