Challenge to Be Free | |
---|---|
Directed by | Tay Garnett |
Written by | Anne Bosworth Chuck D. Keen |
Based on | story by Dick North |
Produced by | Chuck D. Keen |
Starring | Mike Mazurki |
Narrated by | John McIntire |
Cinematography | Chuck D. Keen |
Music by | Ian Bernard |
Distributed by | Pacific International Enterprises |
Release date |
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Running time | 88 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Challenge to Be Free (a.k.a. Mad Trapper of the Yukon and Mad Trapper) is an anti-hero film directed by Tay Garnett and starring Mike Mazurki. The film's plot was a loosely based on the 1931 Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) pursuit of a trapper named Albert Johnson, the reputed "Mad Trapper of Rat River". The film was shot and originally released in 1972 with the title Mad Trapper of the Yukon; it was re-released in 1975 as Challenge to Be Free. [1]
Another film exploring the same topic was The Mad Trapper (1972), a British made-for-television production. [2] A later fictionalized account, Death Hunt (1981), also based on the story of the RCMP pursuit of Albert Johnson, was directed by Peter R. Hunt and starred Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, and Carl Weathers. [3]
In Alaska, Trapper attempts to live in harmony with nature but is aware that other trappers are using inhumane traps. When he is confronted by rival trappers over his interference with their trap lines, they bring along Sargent, the local police officer. Feeling intimidated, Trapper fights back, shooting his way out of his cabin and embarking on a desperate attempt to escape the authorities.
Challenge to Be Free was filmed mainly on location in Alaska, as the locale of the "Mad Trapper" manhunt was changed from the Yukon to the United States. [4] As an American production, Johnson's character was changed to simply "Trapper". The theme song "Trapper Man" was featured. [5] It was filmed and originally released with little promotion as The Mad Trapper of the Yukon in 1972. In 1975, the title was changed and the film was given a wider release, primarily marketed towards younger audiences.
Reviewer Leonard Maltin characterized Challenge to Be Free as being "... A very charming film, wonderful for younger viewers." [6]
Leonard Michael Maltin is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is best known for his eponymous annual book of movie capsule reviews, Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, which was published annually from 1969 to 2014.
Events from the year 1932 in Canada.
Richard Stanford Cox, known professionally as Dick Sargent, was an American actor, notable as the second actor to portray Darrin Stephens on ABC's fantasy situation comedy Bewitched. He took the name Dick Sargent from a Saturday Evening Post illustrator/artist of the same name.
Aklavik is a hamlet located in the Inuvik Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada. Until 1961, with a population over 1,500, the community served as the regional administrative centre for the territorial government.
Wilfrid Reid "Wop" May, was a Canadian flying ace in the First World War and a leading post-war aviator. He was the final Allied pilot to be pursued by Manfred von Richthofen before the German ace was shot down on the Western Front in 1918. After the war, May returned to Canada, pioneering the role of a bush pilot while working for Canadian Airways in Northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories.
A bush airplane is a general aviation aircraft used to provide both scheduled and unscheduled passenger and flight services to remote, undeveloped areas, such as the Canadian north or bush, Alaskan tundra, the African bush, or savanna, Amazon rainforest or the Australian Outback. They are used where ground transportation infrastructure is inadequate or does not exist.
Albert Johnson, also known as the Mad Trapper of Rat River, was a fugitive whose actions stemming from a trapping dispute eventually sparked a huge manhunt in the Northwest Territories and Yukon in Northern Canada. The event became a media circus as Johnson eluded the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) team sent to take him into custody, which ended after a 150 mi (240 km) pursuit lasting more than a month and a shootout in which Johnson was fatally wounded on the Eagle River, Yukon. Albert Johnson is suspected to have been a pseudonym and his true identity remains unknown.
Mike Mazurki was a Ukrainian-American actor and professional wrestler who appeared in more than 142 films. His 6 ft 5 in (196 cm) presence and face had him typecast as often brainless athletes, tough guys, thugs, and gangsters. His roles included Splitface in Dick Tracy (1945), Yusuf in Sinbad the Sailor (1947), and Clon in It's About Time (1966-1967).
William Taylor "Tay" Garnett was an American film director and writer.
Death Hunt is a 1981 Western action film directed by Peter Hunt. The film stars Charles Bronson, Lee Marvin, Angie Dickinson, Carl Weathers, Maury Chaykin, Ed Lauter and Andrew Stevens. Death Hunt was a fictionalized account of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) pursuit of a man named Albert Johnson. Earlier films exploring the same topic were The Mad Trapper (1972), a British made-for-television production and Challenge to Be Free (1975).
I Was a Teenage Frankenstein is a film starring Whit Bissell, Phyllis Coates and Gary Conway, released by American International Pictures (AIP) in November 1957 as a double feature with Blood of Dracula. It is the follow-up to AIP's box office hit I Was a Teenage Werewolf, released less than five months earlier. Both films later received a sequel in the fictional crossover How to Make a Monster, released in July 1958. The film stars Whit Bissell, Phyllis Coates, Robert Burton, Gary Conway and George Lynn.
Alligator is a 1980 American independent horror film directed by Lewis Teague and written by John Sayles. It stars Robert Forster, Robin Riker and Michael V. Gazzo. It also includes an appearance by actress Sue Lyon in her last screen role. Set in Chicago, the film follows a police officer and a reptile expert to track a giant murderous sewer alligator, flushed down the toilet years earlier, that is attacking residents after escaping from the sewers.
The Most Dangerous Game is a 1932 American pre-Code horror film, directed by Irving Pichel and Ernest B. Schoedsack, starring Joel McCrea, Fay Wray and Leslie Banks. The movie is an adaptation of the 1924 short story of the same name by Richard Connell; it is the first film version of the story. The plot concerns a big game hunter who deliberately strands a group of luxury yacht passengers on a remote island where he can hunt them for sport. The producing team included Ernest B. Schoedsack and Merian C. Cooper, co-directors of King Kong (1933). The film was shot at night on the King Kong jungle sets.
Canadian Mounties vs Atomic Invaders (1953) is a Republic Movie serial starring Bill Henry and both produced and directed by Franklin Adreon. It was the sixty-second serial produced by Republic. Despite the title, this is not a science fiction serial. The plot is a northern cold war adventure involving secret missile bases and a planned invasion of the United States.
The Northern or Northwestern is a genre in various arts that tell stories set primarily in the late 19th or early 20th century in the north of North America, primarily in western Canada but also in Alaska. It is similar to the Western genre, but many elements are different, as appropriate to its setting. It is common for the central character to be a Mountie instead of a cowboy or sheriff. Other common characters include fur trappers and traders, lumberjacks, prospectors, First Nations people, settlers, and townsfolk.
Dorothy ("Dot") Spencer was an American film editor with 75 feature film credits from a career that spanned more than 50 years. Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Film Editing on four occasions, she is remembered for editing three of director John Ford's best known movies, including Stagecoach (1939) and My Darling Clementine (1946), which film critic Roger Ebert called "Ford's greatest Western".
North West Mounted Police is a 1940 American epic-western film produced and directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starring Gary Cooper and Madeleine Carroll. Written by Alan Le May, Jesse Lasky Jr., and C. Gardner Sullivan, and based on the 1938 novel The Royal Canadian Mounted Police by R. C. Fetherstonhaugh, the film is about a Texas Ranger who joins forces with the North-West Mounted Police to put down a rebellion in the north-west prairies of Canada. The supporting cast features Paulette Goddard, Preston Foster, Robert Preston, Akim Tamiroff, Lon Chaney Jr. and George Bancroft. Regis Toomey, Richard Denning, Rod Cameron, and Robert Ryan make brief appearances in the film playing small roles.
Secret Mission is a 1942 British war film directed by Harold French and starring Hugh Williams, James Mason, Nancy Price, Carla Lehmann and Roland Culver.
The Mad Trapper is a 1972 British made-for-television docudrama film. The Mad Trapper is based on the 1931 Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) pursuit of a trapper named Albert Johnson, the reputed "Mad Trapper of Rat River".
Cold Front is a 1989 Canadian-American crime-thriller film directed by Allan A. Goldstein and starring Martin Sheen, Michael Ontkean and Beverly D'Angelo.