The Call of the Wild is a 1976 American television film based on Jack London's 1903 novel The Call of the Wild. The film, starring John Beck, was directed by Jerry Jameson from a script by poet and novelist James Dickey. One of several adaptations of London's novel, this version was produced following the success of the 1972 film Deliverance, an adaptation of Dickey's novel of the same title. The author's son, Christopher Dickey, wrote in his 1998 memoir, Summer of Deliverance, that "[t]he Hollywood concept [for the 1976 film] was James Dickey meets Jack London; sort of Deliverance in the Klondike."^[1]