THE PAGAN (1929)

This silent film (with some synchronized sound effects and a couple of songs) is set on an island "in the farthest reaches of the Pacific" where, as the title cards tell us, "a struggling half-breed city has risen to meet the ruthless march of commerce” and that “when East meets West, the result is six barrooms and one bank”—which pretty much tells you the attitude expressed here about the natives. Slater (Donald Crisp) arrives on the island looking for a source for coconuts. He goes to see young Henry Shoesmith Jr. (Ramon Novarro), a "half-breed" whose Anglo father was a friend of Slater's. Henry has a small store but there is very little on the shelves and the clerk spends his time napping. Slater sees Henry as a lazy pagan (we first see Henry lolling about bare-chested with Madge, the island's feisty prostitute), but Henry is also good-hearted and trusting, and he gives Slater access to his coconut trees for free. A spark develops between Henry and Slater's young and lovely ward Tito (Dorothy Janis), a half-breed orphan whom Slater calls his "Christian duty." But Slater, who is training Tito to be "all-white" in her behavior and appearance, calls Henry a "sun-baked pagan" and warns him to stay away from Tito unless he makes something of himself. After Slater and Tito leave the island, Henry takes Slater's remark to heart and borrows money from the bank to jumpstart his store. He's a success but he extends so much credit to the islanders that he can't pay back his loan, so when Slater and Tito return, Slater still won't let him see Tito. In fact, Slater is so paranoid that he arranges to marry Tito himself. With some help from the hooker with a heart of gold, Henry makes one last attempt at making Tito his sweetheart.

This is a fun and interesting movie for a number of reasons. The first 15 minutes are chock-full of casually racist stereotypes about non-whites. The islanders are depicted as lazy heathens, and Slater clearly believes that the "half-breeds" should be trying to better themselves by becoming more "white" in their outlook. Of course, by the middle of the movie, Slater is a full-out villain, reminiscent of the self-righteous preacher of Somerset Maugham's RAIN, and ultimately the message of the film seems to largely subvert the impressions of the opening, if only to say that West should co-exist with East without trying to change its culture. In this pre-Code film, the pagans wind up presented in a positive light and the Christian Western figure becomes a vicious bully with an incestuous twist—Tito is not literally his daughter, but he is her adoptive father, and the sight of the two of them standing at the wedding altar approaches the sight of John Huston and his granddaughter in the final moments of CHINATOWN. (BTW, Slater meets a delicious and deserved fate.)  Still, it's a little weird to hear Madge tell Henry, in trying to get him to rescue Tito, "White men fight for their women—natives *take* their women!" The movie was shot on location in Tahiti and looks fabulous, and director Woody Van Dyke brings a lot of energy to the exterior scenes.

The acting is of a high order all around. Novarro is at his matinee idol peak here; in fact, it's not the women who are objectified here but Novarro, especially in a "female gaze" shot in which the camera pans along his shirtless body as he lies in repose. He overdoes the snarky facial expression here and there but otherwise is fine, as is Dorothy Janis as Tito—she looks remarkably like a dark-haired Stevie Nicks (pictured with Novarro at left). Renee Adoree steals all her scenes as the friendly whore. Crisp is properly stiff and unlikeable as the white trader, and he does a good job early on in a couple of scenes in which you think he will soften his prejudiced views. Though silent, there are sound effects, and Novarro sings "Pagan Love Song" at least three times—it becomes a kind of code between him and Tito. The first time, the synchronization is off (at least in the print I saw) but the other two times, it's fine. A dated but enjoyable bit of pre-Code social criticism disguised as an exotic romance. [TCM]