Robert J. Maxwell An adventure movie from the early 50s, with dazzling locations set (according to the data) in the Grand Teton Mountains of Wyoming. Stewart Granger is a French trapper. If the producers knew what "grand tetons" meant in French, well, no movie would ever be made there. One of the locations is Jenny Lake in the National Park. I like Jenny Lake. I caught several cut throat trout there. I'm only adding that note because I knew you were dying to know.Buckskin-clad Granger visits the town to enjoy himself. He picks up a saloon girl, Cyd Charisse, a half-breed Chippewa, and takes her to the mountains in his canoe, as who wouldn't, along with an ugly and duplicitous roughneck whom Granger accidentally kills. Constable Wendell Corey is ordered by Segeant Preston of the RCMP to dogsled up into the snow-veined Rockies and bring back his man. Corey does find Granger and they begin their trek towards civilization but the journey is frought with every hazard that the thought of the untamed north Canadian woods brings to mind -- avalanches, wolves, rapids. Cyd Charisse has little to do. Her hair style is ill suited and makeup has turned her face and the face of all the other Indians purple. The Chippewa lived nowhere near Alberta's Peace River but no matter. Granger is the boistrous, hard living frontiersman, expansive, always cheerful and never overly sentimental. As the RCMP constable, Corey is his opposite. Quiet, deliberate in his movements, determined -- oozing unction and morality. Surprisingly, Corey does all right in what could have been an extremely pedestrian role.Overall, the film is typical of adventure movies of the period. Kind of fun, shot in alluring settings, and sometimes positively exciting.

Jonathon Dabell In 1952, many "outdoors" adventure films would be shot on the studio back-lot, with fake-looking backgrounds and interior sets masquerading as exteriors. The Wild North benefits greatly from the fact that much of it was shot on authentic locations (the American state of Idaho standing in for northern Canada). The film also benefits from a clutch of strong leading performances from Stewart Granger and Wendell Corey, plus the ravishing Cyd Charisse (cast – some might say miscast – as a native Indian). The whole film is smartly presented by Andrew Marton, whose last film prior to this was another outdoor adventure with Stewart Granger, the 1950 version of King Solomon's Mines.Wise, handsome and resourceful fur-trapper Jules Vincent (Stewart Granger) is accused of a killing, and an inexperienced Mountie named Pedley (Wendell Corey) is the man who must bring him in. Vincent knows the rugged wilderness like the back of his hand, so he heads off into the snowy wastelands to hide from his pursuer. Pedley is determined to prove that he is suited to the dangerous Mountie's work for which he has signed up, so he chases his quarry into the frozen wilds regardless of the risk to his life. After a long and arduous chase, Pedley finds himself lost in the middle of nowhere, totally exhausted and half-mad after his hair-raising journey. As winter closes in, it looks like the Mountie is facing certain death… but during their cat-and-mouse chase Vincent has grown to respect his pursuer. As a mark of this respect, Vincent helps Pedley to survive the winter, after which the mismatched pair make their way towards civilisation.MGM used to be able to knock out these stirring adventure flicks in their sleep, and this one is a pretty entertaining example of their output. Granger and Corey share a good on-screen chemistry, while director Marton successfully makes the scenery against which their adventures occur look suitably wild and beautiful. Within its 97 minute running time, the film is very fast-paced and crammed with incident. Amongst the more thrilling segments, Granger and Corey find themselves in one sequence attacked by a marauding wolf pack. Looking at the film nowadays, it has an old-fashioned style about it that viewers of a certain age and taste might not appreciate. And there have been so many films set in barren, far-flung corners of the world that some of us might no longer find the icy plains of Canada as fascinating as we once did. But, on the whole, The Wild North is a highly enjoyable chase adventure, worth watching for its nostalgic pleasures and its strong performances. As a wise man once said, they don't make 'em like this any more….

azcowboysingr I saw this film when it came out in theatres back when I was a kid & when I saw it on TCM awhile ago, it still socked me right in the kisser with its breathtakingly beautiful cinematography, fast paced action, suspense, and wonderful characters. Stewart Granger is totally believable as the wanted fur trapper, Cyd Charrisse is as beautiful as I remember her, and Wendell Corey is fantastic as the stalwart Mountie who always gets his man. This movie is in my personal list of Top 10 favorite films...ever! I finally got to make a DVD of it from TCM the other night & I've watched it 5 times since then without ever getting tired of it. The closing scene...Wendell Corey in his RCMP costume with a tiny kitten on his shoulder & the snow covered mountains behind him is a picture that I will carry with me to my grave. Absolutely a film to be treasured by anyone who loves great movies!

gerrythree TCM just showed The Wild North today, in a version that had closed captioning added and looked as if it was digitally remastered since its last broadcast on TCM some years ago. Maybe Time-Warner will finally release the DVD of the movie in the near future. MGM in the early fifties turned out a series of high quality star vehicles, which were taken for granted then. With its small cast, The Wild North is like another movie of the period, The Naked Spur, which also deals with bringing a prisoner in. The Wild North has fine location photography in Idaho, a script that moves along and even some photographic effects courtesy of A. Arnold Gillespie. By 1956, with the forced sale of its Loew's theaters, the firing of Dore Schary as head of production and the end of contract system for studio talent, MGM went into a slow death spiral. There would be no more studio pictures like The Wild North, as MGM cut its output and filled a big chunk of its slate of releases with independent productions and movies made overseas. But at least I now have The Wild North on DVD, recorded from today's broadcast, as a souvenir from a vanished era in Hollywood history.