User reviews

In this little-known Van Dyke picture, the brilliant cinematography and acting cancel out the shallow plot and seemingly endless 'docu-footage' of the island. What it all adds up to is a very interesting, beautifully shot representation of an exotic place, with a bit of heavy-handed message to make it a story rather than a documentary. There is one exception to this, though, and it is a stunning one: the scene in which the 'white god' teaches the girl to whistle. It is surprisingly intimate, and acted wonderfully well. I recommend this one to fans of early cinematography.

Monte Blue stars as Doc Lloyd, a drunk living like a bum among the French Polynesian natives who are being exploited by white traders for the nearby valuable pearl beds. The mistreatment of the locals reaches a breaking point for Doc, and after a violent outburst, he ends up on another island, this one untouched by white man's hands. Here Doc cleans up his act, helping the natives with his medical savvy, and falling in love with native girl Fayaway (Raquel Torres).

The Tahitian shores are nice to look at, and the underwater sequences are intriguing for the time. Director W. S. Van Dyke keeps things moving, but this works more as a travelogue than a compelling narrative. A scene where native fishermen wrestle with giant sea turtles is a highlight, even if you sympathize more with the turtles. This won an Oscar for Best Cinematography, but not until 1930.

It still doesn't cease to amaze me how some Silent Movies, dramas or comedies, catch my attention so much, getting me so immersed in the plot, thus making me forget I'm watching a silent, an antique, a piece of history, enjoying the movie as I'd do with any "talking" movie.

In this case, the images are so real (it was filmed on location) and so hauntingly beautiful, that make many later Hollywood films from the 1940's or 1950's, which depict "South Seas Life" look unreal, fake, notwithstanding their possible entertainment value.

There's so much truth in this morality photo-play about a white man, identified as a "derelict" of the South Seas, previously a doctor, who finds "Paradise on Earth" (peace, love & happiness), on a certain island of the Polynesia. Monte Blue is great as this "white man".

Most of the featured players of the film, one realizes, are real natives from the islands, and this adds so much truth to the storyline. Beautiful actress Raquel Torres, does not seem (IMHO) out of place at all as Monte Blue's native love interest. And Robert Anderson is a very nasty villain.

There are some awesome underwater sequences, featuring octopuses, sharks, pearl-diving and others featuring palm-climbing, dancing, etc. Notice the different tinting (reddish, blue, sepia ...) of the sequences of the film; only at the beginning and on the end, plain black and white is used.

Great Sound score for this late "silent film", the first used for a MGM film and the first time Leo-the-Lion roared! The original South-Sea Islands Film. Excellent.

The very first "sound track" film from MGM..sound effects track added by Doug Shearer, who did the sound recording on about 90% of all the old black & whites. Caption cards are still used throughout the film for the dialogue. Was also actually filmed in Tahiti, which would have been pretty rare for those times. Monte Blue ( plays Doctor Lloyd ) and Robert Anderson (the trader) had been in silent films for years, but this was Raquel Torres' ("Fayaway") first role. In our story, when pearls are discovered in the waters of the south seas, the white men move in to take advantage. The natives are up against the caucasian traders, the critters of the sea, storms, and sickness when it comes to their shores. The story is quite simple, but the outdoor and underwater photography are the high points here. Even with a respectable restoration, different scenes appear in various colors, and the lighting and sound have become slightly spotty. Interesting scenes at the feast, where prior to cooking, the fish is carefully sewn up in leaves to keep it from burning. Where others have despaired over the "documentary" feel to the film, I felt that this was one of the strengths. (Although some of those costumes and dances DO look pretty hokey.) Lloyd lives with the natives, and must decide what his long term goal is, and how to reach it. Several scenes have been sped up, which may have been an effort by "someone" to move the plot along more quickly. Or maybe just newer technology going at a different speed. Directed by WS Van Dyke, produced by Thalberg and Stromberg, all pretty big cheeses in the industry at the time.

Nothing distinguishes "White Shadows in the South Seas" as a pre-Code silent film more than its overt criticism of white exploitation and capitalism and its downer of an ending that sees the hero getting killed and the white jerks winning.

Part travelogue, part docudrama, "White Shadows in the South Seas" might seem antiquated because of its silent movie conventions, but don't let that fool you into thinking that it doesn't have sophisticated themes. It deals more frankly with the subject of white colonialism than any movie from, say, the mid-30s through the 1950s would be allowed to.

I don't really know how accurately the film sticks to the actual traditions of the South Seas people in it vs. How much is Hollywood baloney, but it was at least filmed on location, a big deal for a movie back then, and its impressive location photography (and really stunning underwater camera work -- I didn't even know it was possible to film underwater in 1928) won the film the Academy Award for Best Cinematography.

Grade: A-

Spreading from island to island, the WHITE SHADOWS IN THE SOUTH SEAS corrupt every culture they encounter.

This unfortunately obscure film, produced by MGM right at the cusp when the Silent Era was giving way to Sound, is a fascinating look at the vanishing way of life to be found in the South Pacific Islands. Its beautiful, vivid photography justly won the Oscar for Best Cinematography.

This 'Camera Record' was directed by W.S. Van Dyke, the Studio's on-location master. The film's prologue states "Produced and photographed on the natural locations and with the ancient native tribes of the Marquesas Islands in the South Seas." The footage depicting the pearl divers and the coconut tree climbers is particularly noteworthy.

Monte Blue gives a very fine performance as a derelict doctor who finds himself acclaimed as a white god on an island of gentle, friendly natives. His despair at the arrival of brutish Caucasian traders in this idyllic paradise is riveting. Mexican actress Raquel Torres, in her film debut, is poignant as the island maiden who captures Blue's heart.

On a Pacific island, Dr. Matthew Lloyd drinks too much and is tired of the white traders taking advantage of the local pearl divers. Sebastian is the worst of them all. Pearl diving is full of dangers. Matthew gets shipwrecked and falls for island girl Fayaway.

This won the Oscar for cinematography. It has the beauty of the tropics even if it's in black and white. I'm more impressed with the underwater filming. I don't know the history of that part of cinema, but it looks like the real ocean. Maybe they filmed it from the surface. The storm looks like tank work. Apparently, this was sold as a sound film, but that part seemed to have disappointed. The story isn't much. This works better as a travelogue.

This movie, which is part silent and part talkie, is a tale of one man's disintegration, his actions which help to destroy an entire culture and his growing horror at what he has helped to bring about. The movie is still quite effective even now, more than 70 years later, largely because its concerns have probably been part and parcel with humanity's existence since we stopped being nomads and started building cities-greed, the struggle for control, the individual penchant for being your own worst enemy at times. A most memorable and compelling film, the cinematography is beautiful (it justifiably won an Oscar) and the film is one you will remember for a long while.

Some beautiful for its time black and white film footage of the South Seas and its native inhabitants are seen in this film by Woody Van Dyke who managed to find time enough to put a coherent plot into the film.

Monte Blue is a doctor with a social conscience sick of how the white traders are exploiting the south sea natives has gone native himself and is living not much better than them. He falls in love with Raquel Torres daughter of the high chief who is promised to their island Deity.

A god is pretty stiff competition, but Blue eventually eventually given his medical training has some moves.

The story is not the thing though. The documentary like film footage of the South Seas won for White Shadows In The South Seas an Oscar for cinematography. Raquel Torres was quite an appealing subject for the movie camera as well.

The film holds up well even if the story borders on the old fashioned.

Over time I've noticed how much I enjoy the pace of silent movies. Not being pushed and hurried is a very welcoming experience. Also the fact, that, in between the written dialog...you only rely on the physical expressions of the actors and your own imagination. And in my opinion that allows the viewer to enjoy the movie in his or her own unique way. This holds true for all silent movies. This movie would certainly seem to have been ahead of it's time. The statement made was loud and clear. The acting was good. The underwater scenes and the context they were presented in probably had the most impact on me.

How nice is it to see this treatment, this attitude, of the white man's imperialism towards native cultures in the 19th century, especially when other movies from this time period often had such blatant or casual racism. Here we clearly see the white man as the bad guy, greedy for pearls, exploiting the Polynesians, and spreading disease. It may be over the top and idealized at times, with some non-factual bits such as attacking octopi and grand proclamations against the white race as a whole, but its heart was certainly in the right place, and this notion of which party was evil was certainly correct.

Filmed on location in the Marquesas (or perhaps in reality Tahiti), it shows beautiful footage of the islands as well as the culture, such as people dancing, scaling coconut trees, shaving breadfruit, diving, fishing, and making fire. I'm not an expert but it feels authentic, and without a doubt, it's certainly respectful of the indigenous people. Director W.S. Van Dyke ("One Take Woody", who would go on to an Oscar nomination for "The Thin Man") pulls all the right strings here, from a fantastic typhoon scene, to intimate moments between leading man Monte Blue, and an island woman played by Raquel Torres. Most of the rest of the cast consists of real Islanders. Cinematographer Clyde De Vinna was worthy of the Oscar he won for the visual treats he gives us throughout the movie, and we also get a few bits of sound on MGM's first film with a pre-recorded soundtrack. What a hidden gem this film is for 1928.

Woody Van Dyke was a prolific director, with many well-loved and classic movies helmed by him. "White Shadows in the South Seas" is one of his best, showing a mastery of camera use and a skill in leading his cast.

Monte Blue was, likewise, a very prolific actor, but his lead role here has to be one of his best, and one of his best performances. He was very affecting, very touching, and even handled the pre-Yakima Canutt fight scenes well.

There is a realism to this movie that caught my attention, even though I am very familiar with the silent genre, having been, for example, a regular for years at the old Silent Movie Theatre in Los Angeles when it was run by the great John Hampton.

As others have commented here, the beauty of the location joined with the quality of the acting and directing make this masterpiece a cinematic experience, and I urge everyone to grab any opportunity to watch it.

I saw this film years ago at the Cinematheque in Paris, along with "Moana" and "Tabu". We think of Murnau as a supremely gifted director and Flaherty as an extremely talented documentarist. In fact, Flaherty was involved in all three films, finally directing "Moana" in the end. All three directors ended up going in quite different directions and somehow Van Dyke's marvelous film got lost in the struggle. In fact, his film survived any competition and is still wonderful to watch. It helps to remember too that Van Dyke was very much a studio director, Murnau was quite foreign to the system and Flaherty was not only painfully slow but hardly ever compromised with other directors, not to mention studio heads. Van Dyke came out with a great film and it's all his and his alone.

Curtis Stotlar

This was a film that was very visually appealing with good acting on the part of the leads. The Marquesas are the nearest chain of islands to the southeast of Hawaii, and having visited Hawaii several times, I saw this film as a rare opportunity to experience Hawaii as it might have existed before the commercial jet airplane was invented and the isolated territory became a state. Although the traditional culture of the Marquesas may not be exactly like that of Hawaii, it is Polynesian and bears many similarities.

The one major problem that I had with this film was its blatant condemnation of the entire white race with the exception of one recovering alcoholic doctor. Even he momentarily succumbed to "the greed of his race", a lapse in judgment that served to lure the evil, exploitative white trader and his associates to the previously "unspoiled" island. While I am not condoning the reprehensible behavior of some whites during the colonial era, I thought that the racist sentiments against the white race in general, as expressed throughout this film, were very offensive. If the creators of the film desired to make a statement about racism by whites, how is their own racism against whites justified? The belief that Polynesia was perfect until the white man ruined it contradicts my understanding of the history of the region. This biased and unrealistic interpretation of history significantly marred what would have otherwise been an extraordinary film. I also didn't understand why the director included some sounds that only served to disrupt the action and annoy the viewers.

A common trope in the propaganda about colonialism was that the rational-minded, forward-thinking white people introduced Christianity to the ignorant natives and civilized them. That's what makes W. S. Van Dyke's "White Shadows in the South Seas" all the more surprising. Far from pushing the image of heroic colonizers, this movie acknowledges the effect that colonialism had on the indigenous populations. Admittedly, it might be a bit cliched to have the single white man who falls in love with an indigenous culture and seeks to defend the natives from the colonizers, but the movie is serious about it. It just goes to show that what's now called wokeness isn't some newfangled phenomenon; there were socially aware people 100 years ago. I recommend this movie.

Every time that the name Fayaway came up, I kept thinking that it said Faye Dunaway. Fayaway's portrayer, Raquel Torres, later co-starred with the Marx Brothers in "Duck Soup".

MGM did this film no favour by promoting it as their first "sound" film. Given the obsession with "sound" that dominated the US cinema industry in 1928 this meant that all criticism of the film tended to concentrate on whether it ws or was not a genuine "sound" film - which quite evidently it was not. It has a musical score by William Axt intermingled with a few sound effects but, since such orchestral scores were already common in major cinemas during the late silent era, only the degree of synchronisation (the first work of MGM sound recordist Douglas Shearer) represented any kind of innovation.

And the value of the film is not of course there at all but lies, as with any other good silent film, in the strong script and excellent cinematography by Clyde de Vinna (who received the Oscar and would work on all Van Dyke's "exotic" films of the next few years - The Pagan, Trader Horn, The Eskimo) and Bob Roberts who has worked with Flaherty on Moana (1926) and would go on rather surprisingly to become one of the principal cinematographers in the flourishing Argentinian film industry.

Normally speaking this film ought to represent everything that I tend to find crass and mediocre in US film. It is a producer's and cutter's film par excellence, chosen by Irving Thalberg himself and directed by the notorious "one-shot Woody"; Robert Flaherty who was initially to have directed was sacked for working too slowly.

Yet I have to admit this seems to me in some ways the classic US film at its best before the influence of "sound" has become fully felt. It may not have been shot as it claims in the Marquesas but was nevertheless made on location in Tahiti and the cinematography is not in the least studio-bound nor overly preoccupied with continuity or glamorous "star"-focus. It makes use of local non-professional actors and actors and gives a dignified and not altogether paradisal picture of traditional island life. Even without the influence of Flaherty, the film is "too slow" for at least one other commentator, that is to say, probably just about right for any non-US audience. To my mind, it is not the "documentary" aspects of the film one would like to see curtailed but rather the tiresome and over-sentimental love-scenes (to please Thalberg's philistine colleague Stromberg), complete with a bit of "whistling" (to assuage the sound-buffs), which are quite the weakest feature of the film.

Then, politically, as other reviewers have already remarked, it is a strong and unambiguous condemnation of colonial exploitation. In this respect there were two different trends in the US take on traditional cultures - the "progressist" notion on the one hand that they were picturesque but desperately and cruelly harsh (the view favored by Flaherty in Nanook or in The Man of Arran) and the "nostalgic" view of such cultures as "paradisial" (curiously also associated, almost by accident, with Flaherty who had been unable to find anything sufficiently gruesome on Samoa and had to be satisfied with reviving a defunct practice of painful body-tattooing for his 1926 film Moana). As a result Moana had been sold as an "idyll" and contributed to the development of a US "tiki" culture dominated by ideas of the "lost paradise" and "the noble savage".

Probably this film, like Murnau's later Taboo, gained from the departure of Flaherty whose politics were always inclined to favour rather than condemn the "civilising mission". Thalberg and Van Dyke have strongly taken the opposite view while not exaggerating the notion of "paradise" either. In other words, they have successfully steered a course between two false myths (that of primitives saved by civilisation from the harsh savagery, on the one hand and that of a paradisal idyll on the other). Here, whether originally paradisal or not, we are shown a world that is victim to a genuinely savage exploitation by the dreg-end of colonialism (as in the stories of Joseph Conrad) but the contrast shown (very clearly in the parallel scenes of diving and in the more heavily allegorical opposition between pearls and fish-hooks), is not, despite a bit of false rhetoric, so much between a paradise and a hell but rather, quite simply and correctly, between a good and bad use of natural resources and between decent and indecent value-systems.

In the later scenes the story turns totally to moral parable (the corrupting "white shadow" that develops in the hero himself), but, shorn of the more "mystical" elements of the original book, it remains on the whole a reasonably realistic representation, excellently played and excellently shot. The ending, which I shall not reveal although it is I some ways the most unusual feature of the film, is powerful where it could so easily have been facile. The film holds up well , as another reviewer remarks, beside Murnau's 1931 Tabu and compares very favourably indeed with King Vidor's 1932 The Bird of Paradise (a muddle of all conceivable myths and.a falsely glamorous star-vehicle).

The same cannot be said for the marketing of the film which was a model of tasteless exploitation with Sid Grauman's "prologue" to the film at the Chinese Theater, "The Tropics", involving an extravagant array of "tiki" singing and dancing. All the same, that "white shadow"' past ad the film shown, the stars were also present to talk afterwards about their experience in making it.

Monte Blue is one of those drunken doctors who seemed to populate the trading settlements on Pacific Islands. He has many a harsh word for what the White traders have done to the once-carefree Polynesian native. Driven from the island, he is the sole survivor of a shipwreck on an untouched island, where he falls in love with Raquel Torres, saves a youngster's life, and is generally happy until a trading ship comes by and its captain spots the big pearl one of the girls is wearing.

Originally it was to be an anthropological story, and MGM scored a coup when it got Robert Flaherty to direct, with W. S. Van Dyke along to handle the story parts. Flaherty lasted a month, so One-Shot Woody took the crew back to California, where he filmed the story. Perhaps the sequences of the boys climbing coconut palms, and the preparation of a feast were directed by Flaherty; perhaps Van Dyke replicated them from Flaherty's Moana. Meanwhile, back in Culver City, David Selznick was fighting with Hunt Stromberg over whether it was to be an idyll versus "showing more tits". Selznick moved elsewhere, but the native lady dancers are thoroughly covered.

Regardless, Clyde De Vinna's camerawork won a deserved Oscar, and he became MGM's DP for exotic locales, just as Van Dyke spent the next few years directing MGM shoots in Africa. MGM threw its resources at the picture, and Douglas Shearer took the master print to exotic New Jersey to put a soundtrack on it. It's definitely a silent, but it's the first movie in which you can hear the lion roar.