समाचार

By Jeremy Carr

The beginning of Nicholas Ray’s The Savage Innocents—by no means the most typical or best film from this iconoclastic director—touts the ethnographic appeal of its Inuit focus. With debatable accuracy, the 1960 international coproduction illuminates, in somewhat superficial fashion, a “race of nomads” called “The Men.” The narrator says we call them Eskimos, individuals who live a life of ostensible simplicity “in the age of the atom bomb.” For a good portion of the movie, this is the basic premise, in terms of theme and (loose) narrative. It is a fictional, cursory study of a small and select segment of this Arctic population. On the outside looking in, there is a fundamental crudity in their behavior, their stilted English dialogue, their purity and naiveté, and the animalistic manners and utterances of main character Inuk (Anthony Quinn). But try as it might to make this all...

The original Quinn the Eskimo (no kidding) is another life-loving rough portrait from Anthony Quinn, in Nicholas Ray’s rather successful final spin as a writer-director. Despite some technical awkwardness, Ray’s sensitivity to outsider souls finds full expression. Humans don’t get any more ‘outside’ than Inuk, a primitive unequipped to deal with the modern world.

The Savage Innocents

Blu-ray

Olive Films

1960 / Color / 2:35 widescreen (Super Technirama 70) / 110 min. / Street Date June 27, 2017 / available through the Olive Films website / 29.98

Starring: Anthony Quinn, Yoko Tani, Carlo Giustini, Peter O’Toole, Marie Yang, Marco Guglielmi, Anthony Chinn, Francis De Wolff.

Cinematography: Peter Hennessey, Aldo Tonti

Film Editor: Eraldo Da Roma, Ralph Kemplen

Original Music: Angelo Francesco Lavagnino

Written by Nicholas Ray, adapted by Franco Solinas, Baccio Bandini, Hans Ruesch from his novel

Produced by Maleno Malenotti

Directed by Nicholas Ray

It’s arguable that Nicholas Ray’s career began to fall apart as...