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THE ALASKAN MOVIE REVIEW: "The Hell Hounds of Alaska"

11/28/2017

9 Comments

 
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​When I was a kid "Movie Night" was a big deal. Each kid got a turn at choosing a movie from our small library of VHS tapes one night out of the week when we ran the generator to charge the radios' battery. More often than not, I let one of my brothers, or my sister, take my turn. I was known for giving movie night a pass in favor of cuddling up to a good book, ruining my vision reading by kerosene lamp light.

To this day when the topic of movies that the rest of the family know by heart comes up, I am heard to say, "I never saw it." They just shake their heads. The funny thing is, because my bedroom was right above the game room where the movies were watched, I can quote from these movies I've never seen almost as well as they can. (No one tops my brother Robin who is a master at wittily inserting movie quotes into any conversation.)

So, I've never been a big movie person, but thanks to certain friends determined to wise me up, I've been receiving movies through the mail. I have to admit I'm enjoying them far more than I thought I would and find myself getting a thorough education in the history of cinema from Buster Keaton to Star Trek. And then there are movies I receive that purport to being set in Alaska, or having pivotal scenes in Alaska. More often than not, "Alaska" is anything  but  Alaskan.

I've decided to put up a new category titled "The Alaskan Movie Review," in which I will review movies with Alaskan settings--of both the faux and the real Alaska. I hope you enjoy them as much as I'll enjoy reviewing them.
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​My first review is of "The Hell Hounds of Alaska" starring Doug McClure. My dad is a big fan of westerns so I'm familiar with McClure in well-written TV shows like "The Virginian." I'm sorry to report that "Hell Hounds" is not his best outing.

Apparently, like the spaghetti westerns Clint Eastwood starred in, set in Italy, there was another subset of westerns filmed in Germany, in the 1970s, called schnitzel westerns. "Hell Hounds" is a schnitzel.

Before we get to the review, let's start with a true or false quiz to test your AQ (Alaskan Quotient) to see whether you know more about Alaska than the producers of this movie did.

1. Totem poles are often found in Alaska's frozen interior.
2. Totem poles look like Fisher Price toys on a stick.
3. Eagles often attack children in Alaska for no reason.
4. Alaska Natives look exactly like folks in the greater Mediterranean area.
5. You can go from deep snow in an Alaskan winter to leafy streams in only hours.
6. All dogs in Alaska are named Buck.
7. Wearing fur in the middle of summer is uncomfortable.

On to the movie: It has a highly forgettable plot about a gold shipment robbery with typical good guys and bad guys and mob and "Indian" violence and a painfully rehearsed barroom brawl with laughable sound effects (mostly women half-heartedly wailing). On the other hand, it has some weirdly matter-of-fact, surreal moments that made me marvel and/or laugh out loud.
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​Take for instance an early scene where Doug McClure comes across an injured friend who's built his cabin next to the lamest, most Fisher Price on a stick, lollipop looking totem pole ever produced. Let's not forget this is supposed to be deep in the snow-locked interior of Alaska where totem poles were not indigenous. We're told that this is"sacred ground to the Indians," which is apparently what the weird, Dutch-milkmaid totem pole is marking.

Later on, Doug McClure finds the Alaskan Natives, who are dressed and are acting exactly like the so-called Plains Indians in most westerns filmed during this time (and are very obviously European, much like in American westerns), torturing his friend whom they've tied to the lollipop--I mean, totem pole. In order to free his friend, Doug McClure challenges the leader of the tribe to the time-honored, Hollywoodesque knife fight--this time in the snow.
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​This is the most amazingly surreal scene in the entire movie. As I watched it I imagined what it was like to be a member of that German film crew trying to keep warm, watching some actors pretend to be in Alaska, with fake "indians," below a fake totem pole, with the beautiful Alps in the distance.
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​Throughout the movie the scenes, supposedly only hours apart, go from deepest snow and ice to canoe rides or horseback rides into leafy green woods, and to some desert dry areas, which is an obvious impossibility even during Alaska's warmest winters. Some of the actors, to maintain the illusion that they're in snowbound Alaska rather than in the middle of a German summer, retain a fur-trimmed vest, or hat, or gloves while leaving their shirts unbuttoned. In Doug McClure's case, he tenaciously hangs onto his fur-trimmed moccasins right to the bitter end no matter how hot and sweaty his feet must have gotten in the summer heat.

There is the usual pretty young innocent maiden, actress Angelica Ott, but she doesn't bother with the pretense of being in the frozen north, preferring to run around amongst her fur-bearing fellow actors in a short-sleeved, pink and black gingham dress. She chucks this outfit in favor of pants and a fur-free hide vest when her father the sheriff is killed and she declares her intent, as she straps on a pistol, to avenge him. That's as far as her vengeance goes, but it's another surreal moment how everyone in town just accepts this change of attire as perfectly reasonable in a gently bred girl of the time.

In addition tall this, there is some bizarrely off-hand racism. To modern ears the racist, inane dialogue is bad enough, but when you add in the fact that these actors are speaking German and the racism is dubbed in? That puts it over the top into awe-inspiringly awful.
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​Doug McClure, acting with people he apparently can't understand, who are speaking German, gives a bemused, hurried performance. He speaks superfast, as if that will get him through the scenes faster, and perhaps even get the movie over more quickly. While he "phones it in" acting-wise, I have to say that it looks like he took the role of mountain man seriously enough to not have shaved or washed during the entire production. Or maybe he was just depressed? It's hard to say.

But what is certain is that there were no "hell hounds" (whatever those are, and whatever they have to do with Alaska), as advertised. The only canines are some cheerful sled dogs and a pet who makes the ultimate sacrifice and is, of course, named Buck. Because all dogs in Alaskan literature are named Buck. (Just for the record, I have actually never met a dog in Alaska named Buck.) However, there are some bizarrely brutal eagles who attack a boy for no obvious reason, except that apparently this is a thing in "Alaska."

The cover of the dvd promises "savage action in the Far North" but I would say it was more accurate to call it "surreal action in the Faux North." Watch it if you must, but don't say I didn't warn you.

How did you do on the quiz? (Answers: 1-6/F; 7/T) For bonus points, name the Alaska movie on the TV screen in the first photo.
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The most savage action with regard to this movie was when I dropped it and broke a piece off the dvd case.
9 Comments
Sawyer K. Rautt
11/28/2017 02:30:54 pm

As the German Consul General to the State of Alaska, I must officially protest your ungenerous review of "Hellhounds of Alaska." Contrary to your assertions, it is one of the most honored and beloved German movies. In fact, it is #3 on the German Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest German films (exceeded only by "Triumph of the Will" and "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari"). Your famous American actor Douglas McClure was paid a then-record $10,000 to star in this film and the lead actress is revered as "The German Katharine Hepburn." Extensive research was conducted to make it a hurtfully authentic film, including close study of every John Wayne picture. And a second-unit crew spent over a day and a half in Alaska getting authentic footage of your wilderness areas.

The German Legislature is considering a vote to formally lodge a diplomatic protest against your unkind review. To avoid an international incident, I strongly urge you to revise your insulting review.

Thank you for your attention.

--Sawyer K. Rautt
Counsel General to Alaska
Republic of Germany

Reply
Tara (ADOW)
11/28/2017 02:48:48 pm

Dear Sir,

"I must speak as I find," in the immortal words of Jane Austen's Lizzie Bennet.

Sincerely,

A Daughter of the Walrus

P.S. I also doubt your assertion that a study of John Wayne's films were made, otherwise you would have been able to report which movie was displayed in the first picture on the TV screen. I therefore refuse to take your threats seriously at all.

Reply
Robin
11/28/2017 02:42:16 pm

A little blurry but that sure looks like North to Alaska.

Reply
Tara (ADOW)
11/28/2017 02:44:11 pm

Mom and Dad said it was too blurry, that no one would get it from that picture. I said, "Robin will get it."

Thanks for proving me right!

Reply
robin
11/28/2017 02:56:42 pm

You know that both North to Alaska and True Grit had footage filmed on that same creek in California? Hot Creek.

Nancy Guess
12/1/2017 11:28:42 am

True Grit was filmed in Ridgeway, Colorado. I was there on the set as a kid.

Reply
Robin
12/1/2017 12:38:41 pm

Nancy, you are correct for the most part but the dugout scenes were filmed by Mammoth Lakes in California. The scene where they all are waiting to ambush Ned Pepper and his gang was in California at Hot creek. The same area scenery of Sam an Georges cabins in North to Alaska.

Reply
Wendy
12/6/2017 03:13:07 am

Hmmm.......evidently one day a dog owner called for Buck and every Buck went too. Are you sure you all aren't breaking the long forgotten law about cAlling your dogs Buck, or is that an honorary second name requirement since the great Alaskan dog exodus ?

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Franz FT Thomann
4/10/2021 07:40:37 pm

I wonder if the Honorable Mr. Rautt posing as "Counsel General to Alaska" has diplomatic status at all. To make it a a pun, he has certainly outed himself as a man of "depp"-lomatic status. (In German a "Depp" is a fool). The movie us cute, Mr. McClure was his usual good-looking easy-going self and his girl friend did not get beaten up. And of course, a German shepherd had to be part of the action. That really made it the dog's bowwow.

Reply



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