At 1.30 am on a Saturday what do you think a British network station would choose to show ? Something adult with some bad language , sex or violence ? A film everyone has seen on network TV a dozen times at least ? Or as is becoming more and more frequent a British independent movie that is so poor that it deservedly gets buried at a graveyard slot where no one can see it ? None of these things because the local ITV station decided to show WHITE FANG 2 : MYTH OF THE WHITE WOLF which is made by that well known factory of filthy films The Walt Disney Studios . That's right - ITV decided to broadcast a Walt Disney movie at 1.30 am !
First thing you notice is that it's a Walt Disney production ( Even if you haven't seen the on screen credits ) because we're shown wild animals and beautiful natural landscapes and the hero isn't Steven Seagal so it's obviously a Disney movie , in fact the hero is the eponymous White Fang who's a wolf and the humans are somewhat peripheral . Secondly we see for the first time since BLAZING SADDLES a tribe of Jewish Indians led by Moses Joseph and I'm not making this up moi dearz . I don't know what the producers were thinking of either . Moses Joseph ! Oi oi oi
As you might expect being a Disney production there's little in the way of bad language and violence and lots of fluffy mammals and romance and nature studies . Too much in fact because this holds the story up as we see the male hero and White Fang pursue their loves who at first glance ( YAWN ) aren't interested in them but you just know there's going to be a happy ending . As for the adventure element which involves evil gold prospectors ( Makes a change from evil oil barons I guess ) trying to enslave the Hebrew tribe this works in a fairly effective way and found myself wishing the producers had concentrated on this far more than the predictable subplots that we see in countless Disney productions
I also guess that I would have found this film slightly more palatable if the local ITV company had decided to broadcast WHITE FANG 2 at a respectable hour since the last thing you're expecting that time of night / morning is a Walt Disney movie . Despite the shortcomings I probably would recommend this movie as a family adventure even if it isn't 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA .
