To Build a Fire

Starring:Ian Hogg
Studio: Vci Video
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

Powerful story- Powerful film
"Jack London's Famous Short Story...To Build A Fire (1969) ~ VCI Home Video"
Nature 1, Man 0
Single Greatest Movie in History
Comp. 2 Review

To Build a Fire
Starring: Ian Hogg
Manufacturer: Vci Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00002VW85
Release Date: 1999-12-07

Description

Jack London's famous short is filmed with complete fidelity to London's graphic narrative and could be called a screen short story in its purest form. The stark realism of the chilling images combined with the power of Orson Welles' reading fills the viewer with an awesome admiration for the story's courageous hero. The visuals add a new dimension to London's prose and the viewer feels the icy cold to an extent that reaches far beyond the power of words alone. This chilly discomfort provides a tense background for the suspense which is to come as the man attempts to build the fire he must have in order to survive. Bonus Features: Scene Selection| Previews| Jack London Bio. Specs: DVD5; Dolby Digital Mono; 56 minutes; Color; 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio; Year - 1969; SRP - $9.99.

Customer Reviews:

Powerful story- Powerful film.......2007-01-09

I used this DVD in my English classroom after the students read the story by Jack London. The DVD was of good quality, and the film itself is a classic, narrated by Orson Welles.

"Jack London's Famous Short Story...To Build A Fire (1969) ~ VCI Home Video".......2006-08-31

VCI Home Video and A David Cobham Production presents "TO BUILD A FIRE" (1969) - Jack London (56 mins Color) . . . under director David Cobham, script by David Cobham and Anthony Short, sound by Peter Dodson and Mike Billing, Technical adviser Alan Innes-Taylor, director of photography John McCallum, additonal photography Ian Stuart, music by Paul Lewis, film editor Terence Twigg, narration by Orson Welles --- cast includes Ian Hogg as the Chechaquo and his faithful husky . . . . . our story is based on a Jack London short story, with the golden throat narration of the late great Orson Welles...a man is traveling through the great North American wilderness, in temperatures of seventy degrees below zero, with only his dog for a companion...pictures of a chilling image with stark realism fills the viewer with respect for the man as he crosses a frozen stream, a misstep puts his foot through the ice...he knows he must find a way to build a fire to warm himself, or face death...frenzy and desperation take over, challenging all attempts to survive...the man realizes his death is now inevitable...he makes vain attempts to make a run for the camp that always end in his falling after a few hundred feet...he lies down and starts to feel drowsy, realizing a sleep-like death will soon overtake his body...in his delirium he mutters his last words to the old-timer of Sulphur Creek: "You were right, old hoss; you were right." The husky stands around for a while. After smelling death, it howls and trots off on the trail towards the camp.

CHAPTER STOPS:
1. Opening Credits
2. 75 Degrees Below Zero
3. Ice Trap
4. Hot Lunch
5. Wet Feet
6. Safety
7. Another Attempt
8. The Matches
9. Killing the Dog
10.A Mad Dash
11.The Bitter End
12.End Credits

COMING ATTRACTIONS
1. Room at the Top (1959) - featuring Laurence Harvey (nominated for Academy Award for Best Actor)
(winner of 2 Academy Awards for Best Screenplay:Neil Patterson)
(co-starring Simone Signoret winner Academy Award Best Actress)
2. The Lone Ranger (1938) (Motion Picture Version of the Classic Cliffhanger Serial)
3. Ride in the Whirlwind (1965) - written and produced by Jack Nicholson - Monte Hellman's Film -
featuring Jack Nicholson, Millie Perkins, Cameron Mitchell and Harry Dean Stanton
4, The Shooting (1967)- Monte Hellman's Film - produced by Jack Nicholson
featuring Jack Nicholson, Millie Perkins, Will Hutchins and Warren Oates.
5. The Glass House (1972) - Truman Capote's Film
featuring Ala Alda, Vic Morrow, Billy Dee Williams, Dean Jagger and Clu Culager
6. Gargoyles (1972) - featuring Cornel Wilde, Jennifer Salt and Scott Glenn
7. Quackser Fortune has a Cousin in the Bronx (1970) - Gene Wilder and Margo Kidder
8. Secrets of the Millennium - four part series on the planet and decades of questions.

Specal footnote, author Jack London became the best-selling, highest paid and most popular American author of his time."The Call of the Wild" (1903) was his biggest success. "The Sea-Wolf" (1904) was turned into the first full-length American movie. Later came "The Iron Heel"(1908), a premonition of the Orwellian world, and the autobiographical "Martin Eden" (1909). The highest-paid writer of his time, he earned over 2 million dollars, yet he was always broke. In 1905 he bought a ranch in California, where he designed the first concrete silo in the state. His books provided operating income. He once said: "I would write a book for no other reason than to add three or four hundred acres to my magnificent estate." His ecological approach and effort to adapt the ideas of Asian sustainable agriculture was ahead of his time. In 1913 his Big House was ruined by a devastating fire and Jack London was financially and mentally hurt. He built a small cottage and made big plans, but he lived only 3 more years. His 1400 acre ranch is now a National Historic Landmark, named Jack London State Historic Park. The writer's cottage was preserved by his wife Charmian, who lived there until her death in 1955...London was quoted: "I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot. I would rather be a superb meteor, every atom of me in magnificent glow, than a sleepy and permanent planet. The proper function of man is to live, not exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them, I shall use my time." . . . . "A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog."

SPECIAL FEATURES:
BIOS:
1. Jack London (aka: John Griffith Chaney)
Date of birth: 12 January 1876 - San Francisco, California
Date of death: 22 November 1916 - Glen Ellen, California

Want to thank VCI Home Video for releasing "To Build a Fire" (1969) - Jack London, the digital transfere with a clean, clear and crisp print...looking forward to more high quality releases from the vintage serial era of the '40s & '50s...order your copy now from Amazon or VCI Entertainment where there are plenty of copies available, stay tuned once again for top notch wonderful character actors of the cinema brought back so many wonderful memories of the times when film makers cared about you who purchased a ticket and came back for more...just the way we like 'em.

Total Time: 56 mins on DVD ~ VCI Home Video 8226 ~ (12/07/1999)

Nature 1, Man 0.......2005-07-22

A man and his dog are walking along Henderson Creek in the high Yukon country. It is winter, and winter in the Yukon can be unforgiving to a chechaquo, a newcomer to the land. It's the man's first winter and he is walking on a day he should not. The dog knows this, but the man is a newcomer. The temperature is colder than sixty-five degrees below zero. Jack London's `To Build a Fire' is a classic tale of man against nature, London's harsh Yukon nature that was ruled by the law of club and fang. First published as a juvenile story in the magazine Youth's Companion in 1902, it was changed a bit for an adult audience and published in its final form in the Century Magazine in 1908. A little later it was anthologized in a slim volume of London short stories entitled `Lost Face' in 1910.

TO BUILD A FIRE is a 56-minute episode from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's 1981 mini-series `Jack London's Tales of the Klondike.' Directed by David Cobham, narrated by Orson Welles and starring Ian Hogg as the man, it is a faithful adaptation. Which, in this case, is a mixed blessing. London wrote from inside his characters, and what happened - the action - almost always shared equal billing with the character's reaction to that action. I mean, his masterpiece, The Call of the Wild, is written from a dog's point-of-view! The challenge presented by works like Call of the Wild and To Build a Fire is to bring that inner voice to the surface. This program met the challenge, with middling success, by having Welles read pertinent sentences from the story over the action.

Remove the narration and you have an hour's worth of a man walking across the snow. It doesn't look as cold as I've pictured it, although whoever did the make-up frosted up the man's beard right nicely. The man and dog get along too well, too. London's Man ruled by the club, his Dog challenged that rule with the fang, and neither party ever seemed particularly fond of the other. There are scenes in TO BUILD A FIRE where the dog seems downright frisky and playful. Nowhere in the program is this observation from London's story on display - "On the other hand, there was no keen intimacy between the dog and the man. The one was the toil-slave of the other, and the only caresses it had ever received were the caresses of the whip-lash and of harsh and menacing throat-sounds that threatened the whip-lash. " I never thought I'd ever have occasion to offer this observation, but I think the husky Pepper was miscast. This program needed a surly dog, and they got a Disney-cute one instead. I haltingly recommend TO BUILD A FIRE. It could have been much worse. Do not under any circumstance, though, watch this before reading the story. London's story in its entirety is readily available on the internet, and your first exposure to a story usually sets it in your mind. If you watch this before reading the original you're likely to wonder what all the fuss is about.

Single Greatest Movie in History.......2005-01-26

How do you say "Greatest movie of all time?" I'll tell you how... "To Build a Fire," that's how! With stunning special effects, and the finest movie score we've ever heard, "To Build a Fire" kept this group of movie goers on the edge of our proverbial seats!
As an assignment for a Composition class, seven of my dearest classmates and I sat down to review the movie and we all agreed. Nothing beats "To Build a Fire." The movie tells the tale of a man (keenly resembling Grizzly Adams) on his trip through the Yukon, on his way to camp at the Klondike gold strike. It is a breathtaking tale indeed! We were shocked upon finding that neither Ian Hoggs (who plays the Grizzly Adamsesque traveler) nor the dog (who plays... the dog) won oscars or any other awards; the Academy sure missed the boat on this one! Ian Hoggs is a master of his craft, and not just anyone can pull off the Grizzly Adams look! Our group of 8 movie reviewers give "To Build a Fire" 16 frost-bitten, lifeless thumbs up!

Comp. 2 Review.......2005-01-22

The story "To Build a Fire" was very intersting but the movie fell short. Costuming, scenery and special effect were all miserable. The sotry depicts a man who had a strong bond with his dog and is very knowledgeable with it comes to traveling. In the story we could picture how cold it was by the color of his amber beard from his tobacco chew and the darkness. The movie did not depict the amber beard and the darkness.
The movie left many of these elements out. Until the very end of the movie when his face frosted over it seemed like he was just a man walking on a normal winter day, but iwth arrogance and stupidity.

Average customer rating:

To Build a Fire

Manufacturer: Miracle Pictures
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

4-for-3 All DVDs | 4-for-3 DVD | Stores | DVD | Video
Product Features:

Dolby digital
Scene selection
Interactive menus

ASIN: B000FKTLMS

Product Description

A man is traveling through the great Alaskan wilderness in temperatures of 70 degress below zero, with only his dog for a companion. As he crosses the frozen stream, a misstep puts his foot through the ice. He knows he must find a way to build a fire to warm himself or face death.

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