THE SAVAGE INNOCENTS
A film review by Shane R. Burridge
Copyright 1995 Shane R. Burridge
(1959) 110m.
Doozy of a film by Nicholas Ray, unlike anything else he'd done in Hollywood. Straightforward tale of life in the Arctic circle finds Inuit hunter Inuk (A believable performance by Anthony Quinn) trying to settle down with a wife and make sense of his recent contact with white traders who have established a post several months journey from his hunting grounds. Story could have been incredibly trite but the intelligent screenplay (by Ray) manages to keep one step ahead. The only times it falters is when an unnecessary and annoyingly folksy narrator (you'll feel like strangling him), who could have been lifted straight out of a True-Life Adventure, keeps interrupting and explaining the characters' behavior. This wouldn't have been done if the film had been made today, but the film-makers apparently felt the need to inform the audience that they had done their homework on Eskimo lifestyles. Also, the narration serves to add a documentary flavor to their story. But why bother? Probably because the producers did not want to be stuck with a film centered around characters that viewers found too alien and were unable to identify with. Perversely, the voice-over nearly spoils any authenticity the film tries to maintain. Besides, it's more fun listening to the quirky speech patterns of the Inuit characters than any narrator (they do not have the personal pronoun "I"). This dialogue, more than any other device, molds the film's distinctive, alien milieu.
When Inuk and his wife--whose point of view direct the story--first encounter rudimentary elements of white civilization, we get two alien worlds/viewpoints for the price of one. The conflict of values, which governs the narrative drive from halfway through the film, provides the major theme of the story. It's hard to tell if Ray is more interested in this plotline or the punctuation of rituals throughout it. We see rituals for death, birth, eating, hunting, etc. They at least give him an excuse to be incredibly daring for 1959--in what other film of that time does the leading lady bare her breasts?--and Ray could portray attitudes toward sex more frankly on screen in this quasi-documentary fashion than he could with his contemporary social dramas. Some must have found the portrayal of the permissive Inuit lifestyle scandalous, surely the main reason Rank distributors opted to back the project in the first place. What's the bet they considered calling it THE INNOCENT SAVAGES first up? This one has cult movie written all over it. Watch for an uncredited and dubbed Peter O'Toole making his screen debut--he'd reach superstar status three years later when he was reunited with Quinn in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA.
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