Challenge to White Fang

Challenge to White Fang is a 1974 Italian Northern adventure film directed by Lucio Fulci. It is a sequel to Fulci's White Fang (1973), as part of a trend inspired by Call of the Wild (1972), which was a surprise hit in Italy. Two German productions in this trend were Hellhounds of Alaska and Cry of the Black Wolves, both directed by Harald Reinl. Plot Set in the Yukon, Canada in 1899 around three years after the conclusion of the previous film, Mitsha (Missaele) (the young boy from the first White Fang movie), is now a pre-teenager working with his wolf-dog and two fur traders when Beauty Smith (John Steiner) and two henchmen appear and raid the traders camp shooting and killing all of them, including Mitsha, and escapes in a canoe with all their equipment. Several hours later, the wolf-dog is found by John Tarwater (Harry Carey Jr.) a grizzled old trader who buries the dead Mitsha, and takes the hound back to a nearby town which is his home. The wolf-dog befriends another young boy who is John's orphaned, 10-year-old grandson Bill Tarwater (Renato Cestle). After looking for a name, Bill gives White Fang his name by yet again from the beasts ivory-white teeth. At a local saloon, White Fang helps John Tarwater win some money at a card game from a crooked card-shark, and a fistfight breaks out between the swindler and his victims as John casually counts his money, while White Fang and Bill take cover behind the bar. John then embarks on one of his periodic expeditions to discover gold. Meanwhile, Beauty Smith is alive and well, and again exploiting the people of the very town where John and Bill live. Smith lives under the alias 'Charles Forth', a local businessman, and fakes a crippling injury by confining himself to a wheelchair with his two henchman always at his side. Sister Evangelina (Virna Lisi) is now running a new mission hut in the town to convert into a hospital. She decides to ask 'Mr. Forth' for funding to operate her hospital despite warnings from the townsmen that 'Mr. Forth' is a businessman and won't give her any money unless she gives him assurances that she will repay the loan, with interest, within 60 days or less. Sister Evangelina nevertheless goes to meet with him, and she recognizes the villainous man immediately.