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People are voting emotionally.

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

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

Late in 1927, Irving Thalberg decided to shoot an epic adventure film and he selected "White Shadows in the South Seas". Robert Flaherty, a famed documentary maker, was selected to direct. Thalberg had been very impressed with his "Moana" of 1926. W.S. Van Dyke was named as assistant director, he had mainly worked on westerns, but in years to come with films such as "Trader Horn" (1931) and "The Thin Man" (1934) etc he earned a reputation as a stylish but fast director who always got films finished on time. Almost immediately, Flaherty found the studio schedule too binding and walked out - W.S. Van Dyke carried on. With the involvement of both Flaherty and Van Dyke, the movie has the best of both worlds - the magnificent documentary style of photography combined with an imaginative, stirring story.Filmed in Tahiti, even though the opening credits claim it was shot on location in the Marquesas Islands with "authentic" islanders, it tells the story of white shadows in the South Seas - the shadow white men cast over the beautiful, untouched Polynesian Islands. Dr. Matthew Lloyd (Monte Blue) a "derelict of the islands", is an alcoholic and despairs of the way white men have cheated, robbed and exploited the trusting natives. He makes an enemy of Sebastian (Robert Anderson), an evil trader, who manages to get Lloyd on to a plague ridden boat, which, during a typhoon, is ship wrecked on another uncharted island. Island life is filmed in a golden glow - absolutely dazzling. The scenes of natives diving for pearls, preparing the feast and doing ceremonial dances have a documentary feel to them (Flaherty's influence) and are a glorious panorama of a lost time. When Lloyd rescues the chief's young son from drowning the island people make him a God. Eventually he also succumbs to the "instinct of his ruthless race - Greed!!" He finds a cast off pearl and starts to dive for them. When Fayaway (beautiful Raquel Torres) finds him lighting a fire to attract passing ships, her sadness and pleading convinces him he has been a fool. More white shadows come with a boatful of traders (the evil Sebastian among them) who intend to open a store and send the natives diving for pearls. The ending is confronting and not at all like I thought it would be - it creates a very sad and somber finish to a beautiful, thoughtful film.Monte Blue had been a rugged leading man throughout the twenties - this was probably his best remembered film. Raquel Torres, a beautiful Mexican actress made her debut as Fayaway, but unfortunately, in the handful of films she made, she was usually cast as island girls with names like Raquella, Pepita and "hula dancer".Highly, Highly Recommended.

Thanks are due to TMC for reviving this antique for contemporary audiences. The film deserves rediscovery. With its exotic setting and simple morality tale, the fable achieves considerable power. Especially memorable is the very last scene with the artfully posed Tiki god emblematic of what has been lost. Also, note the briefness of that final revealing sequence showing how the native culture has been corrupted. Once the traders prevail, it's almost painful to see these innocents replaced with dangling cigarettes, laboring children, and commercialized dancing. Though kept brief, the stark contrast took nerve on the part of filmmakers who risked backlash from audiences unused to seeing Western impact in a negative light. For rarely do we see the effects of colonial expansion portrayed in such touching terms. Sure, some of the movie's romance scenes are overlong, while others are plain hokey. But the underlying theme of paradise lost remains as affecting now as it was then.Not to excuse the ruthless traders—but when the simple native economy is replaced by the Western commodity economy, an historical dilemma is posed. On one hand, we regret the loss of the simple, idyllic innocence so powerfully portrayed in the trusting people and natural abundance of the tropical isle. However, that idyllic existence is also a static existence, with no motive for science, knowledge, or development, at least as the Western world understands them. Whatever their greedy motives, the traders do represent the possibilities of dynamic Western culture. Put simply and starkly, the contrasting choice is between a culture of comfortable inertia or one of developmental challenge. The appeal of each is something to think about. Anyway, I'm not sure which I would choose, but after a long week's work, I think I'm with the doctor.

This is a fine silent film done in the tradition of Robert Flaherty's docu's but with a scenario/script. Monte Blue in his finest silent performance is a doctor who has become disenchanted with his existence & has taken to the bottle. He meets Sebastian, a modern day opportunist cum pirate. He and Monte clash and later Monte is shanghaied by some of Sebastian's thugs and tied to the wheel of a schooner which in the title cards is infested with bubonic plagued dead bodies. The schooner is set adrift in a storm and Monte gets loose from the wheel and tries steering the boat to safety only to end up on some rocks on an uncharted tropical Pacific island. Monte later after the shipwreck meets some native islanders who have been insulated from the outside world-civilisation. They adopt Monte as one of their own and he learns to live with them and has a renewed interest in life. As time goes on Monte(his character is called Lloyd)& the natives become as family. One day Monte goes pearl diving and realizes the value of such an abundance of pearls. Greed overtakes Monte causing him to throw his newfound existence with the natives as well as their trust in the garbage can. He sets out a signal fire atop a hill to be rescued. The only boat to see his signal is Sebastian & his men. They arrive in all of their colonial like arrogance and get the native women to smoke cigarettes & the men to be lazy. Later Monte & Sebastian meet a final time before one of Sebastian's men shoots Monte dead.This is a fine film to introduce a novice to silent films. It's what these films were all about. Fine story telling without any recorded dialogue. Beautiful travelogue like photography(in Tahiti by the way). A 10 out of 10 from me.