Arctic Fury

Last updated
Arctic Fury
Arctic Fury poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Norman Dawn
Fred R. Feitshans Jr.
Screenplay by Charles F. Royal
Norton S. Parker
Robert Libott
Frank Burt
Story byNorman Dawn
Produced byNorman Dawn
Fred R. Feitshans Jr.
Boris Petroff
StarringAlfred Delcambre
Eve Miller
Gloria Petroff
Dan Riss
Merrill McCormick
Fred Smith
CinematographyNorman Dawn
Edward A. Kull
Jacob Kull
William C. Thompson
Edited by Fred R. Feitshans Jr.
Music by Arthur Kay
Production
company
Plymouth Productions
Distributed by RKO Pictures
Release date
  • May 4, 1949 (1949-05-04)
Running time
61 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Arctic Fury is a 1949 American adventure film directed by Norman Dawn and Fred R. Feitshans Jr. and written by Charles F. Royal, Norton S. Parker, Robert Libott and Frank Burt. The film stars Alfred Delcambre, Eve Miller, Gloria Petroff, Dan Riss, Merrill McCormick and Fred Smith. The film was released on May 4, 1949, by RKO Radio Pictures. [1] [2]

Contents

Arctic Fury is an updated version of the film Tundra (1936), which starred Alfred Del Cambre (billed as "Del Cambre"). Tundra, like other films produced by the Edgar Rice Burroughs-Tarzan company, was filmed on location under primitive and sometimes treacherous conditions. Norman Dawn staged the action, serving as director and co-photographer. In 1949 director-film editor Fred Feitshans, Jr. prepared a remake to be produced in Hollywood, using many of the arctic action sequences from the original Tundra. Co-stars Alfred Delcambre and Merrill McCormick were hired to repeat their former roles in new scenes.

Plot

As the film opens, government official Dan Riss informs the viewing audience that the film which follows tells an incredible-but-true story.

A doctor (Alfred Delcambre), who served as a U.S. Navy medical officer during World War II, settles down in Alaska with his wife and daughter (Eve Miller and Gloria Petroff, respectively) to open a private practice. But, the population still being sparse, even in 1949, he occasionally bush pilots his open-cockpit monoplane to out-of-the-way places in the wilderness to render medical aid. When he hears of an Inuit tribe afflicted with a contagious disease, unknown to them, he makes an extended flight to examine them. But, his plane develops engine trouble and he crash-lands in the Colville River region of northern Alaska, where he just barely swims to shore ahead of a hungry polar bear and an avalanche of falling glacial ice.

Having memorized a map to the Inuit village, shown him by Mack (Merrill McCormick), a Sourdough fur trapper, he begins traipsing overland. Along the way, he briefly takes shelter in a cave already inhabited by a mother black bear with two cubs. In chasing her off, however, he finds that her cubs are still in the cave. So, when he resumes his journey, he takes them with him. Eventually noting, in his pilot's log, that he has named them Tom and Jerry!

Wreckage from the doctor's plane is eventually found, renewing hope of the doctor's survival within both his wife and Mack. Guessing that the doctor is headed on foot towards the Inuit village, the trapper heads there in his boat. Arriving there just in time to rescue both the doctor and the bear cubs from feral sled dogs gone half-mad with hunger (their Inuit owners having died from the aforementioned illness).

The doctor eventually replaces his previous aircraft with a new one of the same type. And the narrator concludes the story by claiming how the doctor's tale of survival has been handed down among the Inuit as a campfire story worthy of retelling. With various members of other tribes looking up at his supposedly passing-by plane with grateful awe and respect.

Cast

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Back River (Nunavut)</span> Major river in northern Canada

The Back River, formerly Backs River, is the 20th longest Canadian river and is located in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. It rises at an unnamed lake in the North Slave Region of the Northwest Territories and flows more than 974 km (605 mi) mostly through the Kivalliq Region, Nunavut, to its mouth at the Arctic Ocean in the Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baffin Island</span> Largest Arctic island in Nunavut, Canada

Baffin Island, in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada and the fifth-largest island in the world. Its area is 507,451 km2 (195,928 sq mi) with a population density of 0.03/km²; the population was 13,039 according to the 2021 Canadian census; and it is located at 68°N70°W. It also contains the city of Iqaluit, which is the capital of Nunavut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Igloolik</span> Hamlet in Nunavut, Canada

Igloolik is an Inuit hamlet in Foxe Basin, Qikiqtaaluk Region in Nunavut, northern Canada. Because its location on Igloolik Island is close to Melville Peninsula, it is often mistakenly thought to be on the peninsula. The name "Igloolik" means "there is a house here". It derives from iglu meaning house or building, and refers to the sod houses that were originally in the area, not to snow igloos. In Inuktitut the residents are called Iglulingmiut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ukkusiksalik National Park</span> National park in Nunavut, Canada

Ukkusiksalik National Park is a national park in Nunavut, Canada. It covers 20,885 km2 (8,064 sq mi) of tundra and coastal mudflats south of the Arctic Circle and the hamlet of Naujaat, from Hudson Bay's Roes Welcome Sound towards the western Barrenlands and the source of Brown River. The park surrounds Wager Bay, a 100 km (62 mi)-long inlet on the Hudson Bay. Although the smallest of Nunavut's four national parks, it is the sixth largest in Canada. Its name relates to steatite found there: Ukkusiksalik means "where there is material for the stone pot".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Merrill</span> American actor (1915–1990)

Gary Fred Merrill was an American film and television actor whose credits included more than 50 feature films, a half-dozen mostly short-lived TV series, and dozens of television guest appearances. He starred in All About Eve and married his costar Bette Davis.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Resolute, Nunavut</span> Place in Nunavut, Canada

Resolute or Resolute Bay is an Inuit hamlet on Cornwallis Island in Nunavut, Canada. It is situated at the northern end of Resolute Bay and the Northwest Passage and is part of the Qikiqtaaluk Region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fred Clark</span> American actor (1914-1968)

Frederick Leonard Clark was an American film and television character actor, often cast in authoritative roles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Archibald Houston</span> Canadian artist, designer, childrens author and filmmaker (1921 – 2005)

James Archibald Houston was a Canadian artist, designer, children's author and filmmaker who played an important role in the recognition of Inuit art and introduced printmaking to the Inuit. The Inuit named him Saumik, which means "the left-handed one".

<i>Not as a Stranger</i> 1955 film by Stanley Kramer

Not as a Stranger is a 1955 American film noir drama film produced and directed by Stanley Kramer, starring Olivia de Havilland, Robert Mitchum, Frank Sinatra and Gloria Grahame. It is based on the 1954 novel of the same name by Morton Thompson, which topped that year's list of bestselling novels in the United States. The film's supporting cast features Broderick Crawford, Charles Bickford, Lon Chaney Jr., Lee Marvin, Harry Morgan and Mae Clarke.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ray Mala</span> American actor

Ray Mala was a prominent Native American Hollywood actor. He was one of Hollywood's Native American movie actors along with Lillian St. Cyr, Jesse Cornplanter, Chief Yowlachie, William Eagle Shirt, and Will Rogers who also had successful careers during that time. Mala's career peaked in the 1930s and he was best known for his lead role in Republic Pictures' 14-part serial Robinson Crusoe of Clipper Island (1936) following his feature role in MGM's Eskimo, directed by Woody Van Dyke. He was named a "Top Ten Alaskan" by TIME Magazine in 2009.

<i>Its in the Bag!</i> (1945 film) 1945 film by Richard Wallace

It's in the Bag! is a 1945 comedy film featuring Fred Allen in his only starring film role. The film was released by United Artists at a time when Allen was at the peak of his fame as one of the most popular radio comedians. The film has been preserved by UCLA Film & Television Archive.

<i>The Trap</i> (1966 film) 1966 romantic adventure drama movie directed by Sidney Hayers

The Trap is a 1966 British-Canadian adventure western film directed by Sidney Hayers. Shot in the wilderness of the Canadian province of British Columbia, Oliver Reed and Rita Tushingham star in this unusual love story about a rough trapper and a mute orphan girl. The soundtrack was composed by Ron Goodwin and the main theme is familiar as the title music used by the BBC for London Marathon coverage.

William Merrill McCormick was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 250 films between 1916 and 1953.

<i>Cheyenne Rides Again</i> 1937 film

Cheyenne Rides Again is a 1937 Western film directed by Robert F. Hill. It stars Tom Tyler and Lon Chaney Jr. Much as did Alfred Hitchcock in his own films, director Hill appears in a cameo as townsman "Bartender Ed".

Car 99 is a 1935 American thriller film directed by Charles Barton and written by Karl Detzer and C. Gardner Sullivan. The film stars Fred MacMurray, Ann Sheridan, Guy Standing, Marina Koshetz, Dean Jagger, William Frawley and Frank Craven. The film was released on March 2, 1935, by Paramount Pictures.

The All American is a 1932 American pre-Code sports drama film directed by Russell Mack and written by Ferdinand Reyher and Frank Wead. The film stars Richard Arlen, Andy Devine and Gloria Stuart. It was given its premiere in Los Angeles on October 7, 1932, by Universal Pictures. Many noted real-life football players and a coach appeared uncredited in the film.

<i>The Aviators of Hudson Strait</i> 1973 Canadian film

The Aviators of Hudson Strait is a 1973 Canadian short documentary film produced by the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) for the Canadian Department of National Defence.

A Mohawk's Way, also known as The Mohawk's Treasure, is a 1910 short silent black and white drama film directed by D. W. Griffith, written by Stanner E.V. Taylor and based on James Fenimore Cooper novel, and photography by G.W. Bitzer. It stars Dorothy Davenport and Jeanie MacPherson.

<i>The Way of the Eskimo</i> 1911 film

The Way of the Eskimo is a lost 1911 American silent drama film that portrayed the Inuit or "Eskimo" culture of northeastern Canada along the coast of Labrador. Directed by William V. Mong and produced by Selig Polyscope Company, this "photoplay" was based on a love story written by Columbia Eneutseak, a young Inuit woman who was born in the United States in 1893, in the "Esquimaux Village" exhibition at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. She, fellow Inuit performer Zacharias Zad, and William Mong costarred in the film with a supporting cast that included members of Columbia's immediate family and other Inuit players. While this production was promoted in 1911 as being filmed on location in northern Canada, it was actually shot that year at the snow-covered port town of Escanaba, Michigan, along a frozen stretch of shoreline of Little Bay de Noc, which connects to Lake Michigan.

<i>Tundra</i> (1936 film) 1936 film

Tundra is a 1936 American drama film directed by Norman Dawn and featuring Merrill McCormick, Frank Baker and Earl Dwire. Originally the film was backed by Universal Pictures, but it was dropped when Carl Laemmle lost control of the studio. Production and distribution was then taken over by the independent Burroughs-Tarzan Pictures. Seven months of location shooting took place in Alaska. The film's sets were designed by the art director Charles Clague. Footage from the film was later re-used for the 1949 RKO release Arctic Fury.

References

  1. "Arctic Fury (1949) - Overview - TCM.com". Turner Classic Movies. Retrieved 18 November 2022.
  2. "Arctic Fury". TV Guide. Retrieved 18 November 2022.