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Ostensibly based on a James Oliver Curwood story, this clumsy western marked the directorial debut of Edward Dmytryk, who suffered the indignity of having his last name misspelled "Dymtryk" in the opening titles. According to Dmytryk, the film was produced for $5,000 by an (unnamed) amateur actress from San Diego, who not only played the hero's dying mother but whose daughter, Betty Jordan, was cast as the leading lady. Quite a bit of footage is taken up by Zandra, the hero's wolf dog, a dancing child actor, Dickie Jones, who constantly flubs his lines, and an Italian comedy relief cook played by one Don Orlando, an especially woeful "personality" who haunted several other B-Westerns at the time. In his only starring role, leading man Yancey Lane is no help whatsoever. Though handsome enough, Layne was a thespian with limited skills. A name-change to Bruce Lane led only to a couple of supporting roles. Filmed at the Monogram studios in Hollywood, The Hawk was re-released in the 1940s as Trail of the Hawk, this time with an added medicine show sequence featuring Ramblin' Tommy Scott, Luke McLuke and Sandra Scott.