Sonoma film festival celebrates Jack London

Three Hollywood adaptations of Jack London's chart-topping adventure novels will find their way to the silver screen again as part of a Jack London Classic Film Fest, held Nov. 3-5 in Sonoma.

Screenings of “The Call of the Wild,” “The Sea Wolf” and “White Fang” will celebrate the centennial of Jack London's death and the opening of Sonoma Grammar School, co-sponsored by Jack London State Historical Park and the Sonoma Community Center.

Of the trio, “The Sea Wolf” stands out as the best known and most imaginatively constructed. With it, Director Michael Curtiz created a whole new genre: the shipboard noir.

“The Sea Wolf” had its world premiere on the luxury liner “America,” which brought dozens of Hollywood stars to San Francisco Friday, March 21, 1941. Jack's wife Charmian London, then 69, went aboard the ship early Saturday morning and did a nationwide broadcast about Jack and how he wrote the book.

After breakfast and a reception given by the mayor of San Francisco, the star-studded group boarded three Greyhound buses and rode to the Jack London ranch in Glen Ellen, where more than 300 guests enjoyed a BBQ in the winery ruins, arranged by the Chamber of Commerce.

Among those present at the ranch were Edward G. Robinson, John Garfield, Mary Astor, Maria Montez, Susan Peters, Charlie Ruggles, Dennis Morgan, Jane Wyman, Julie Bishop, Alexis Smith, Marguerite Chapman and Ronald Reagan. Later that day, “The Sea Wolf” premiered at the Sebastiani Theatre in Sonoma. Edward G. Robinson and other cast members made personal appearances on stage.

Watch for footage of them contained in the rare DVD to be shown Nov. 4 before the film.

Charmian, a publicity hound who was thrilled to have Hollywood stars, reporters and socialites at the ranch, wrote in her diary, “I am the most conspicuous of all.”

In the film, Edward G. Robinson gives a powerful performance as Wolf Larsen, the dictatorial captain of the Ghost, a schooner fleeing Wolf's brother's steam-powered ship. John Garfield plays George Leach a rebellious seaman, and Ida Lupino plays Ruth Webster, a girl of the Barbary Coast. Both are escaped convicts who try to get away from Larsen's cruelty and treachery and succeed at the end. Alexander Knox plays Humphrey van Wyden, a novelist writing a book about Larsen.

Robinson's performance as Wolf Larsen, one of the greatest screen villains ever, has been described as “inspired,” “cunning,” “merciless,” “ruthless,” “maniacal” and “feral.” Robinson said the character he portrayed “was a Nazi in everything but name,” which, he noted, was relevant to the state of the world at that time.

Screenwriter Robert Rossen turned London's critique of selfish and brutal individualism into a critique of Nazi Germany and an allegory of 1930s fascism.

Charmian London observed, “Picture well done if novel is butchered.”

Rossen eliminated the romantic interlude between Hump and Maud on Endeavour Island. He relegated Hump, the novel's hero, to a supporting role and made George Leach, who has a minor role in the novel, into a proletarian hero. He also changed the character of Maud Brewster into Ruth Webster, a woman fleeing prison and life as a prostitute. Wolf Larsen was transformed from a Nietzschean superman into a thinly disguised European dictator.

Susan Nuernberg is a Jack London scholar and co-author of “Smiling Into Ruins,” an upcoming biography of Charmian London.