Chanson païenne

This short and sweet silent film stars one of the brightest stars of the era, Ramon Novarro. Novarro's trademark energy is channeled into a great performance as a half white half native on an island where he is not accepted by everyone. He is a wealthy man but would rather spend his time lounging in the sun eating bananas and coconuts than doing business. He meets a beautiful native girl named Tito (Dorothy Janis), half white and half native like himself. However, she is restricted by her benefactor, a hypocrite Christian businessman (Donald Crisp) who wants to train her to be white. The natives begin to have a love affair much to the chagrin of the wealthy benefactor and a prostitute (Renée Adorée) who is in love with Novarro.

As a silent made after the talkies swept entertainment, this film features a recorded soundtrack with sung music and sound effects. Sometimes the lips do not match the recording, but the track works quite well with illustrating the story.

While this film is a silent with synchronized score, there are two short scenes where Novarro sings a portion of the theme, "Pagan Love Song". First, when he is thrown off the boat by Donald Crisp and toward the climatic end when he lays down, humming the tune, and finds Crisp's cane.

You can hear him tapping the cane against the bamboo hut "live", not added sound. Both of these scenes are in perfect sync (probably Vitaphone--sounds like disc surface noise). You can usually tell the "sound stage sound" as opposed to studio sound added later.

The reason for these two short sequences is probably because the film was filmed "on location" in the Pacific. At that time, location sound recording would have not been practical. The scenes were most likely shot on a sound stage at M-G-M. Many silents were still in production in 1929. Adding sound sequences, or "goat glands", as they were called, was a transitional way of making silents "part-talkies", as referred by Photoplay magazine.

Woody Van Dyke captained an entire MGM crew for a location shooting in Tahiti for The Pagan where Ramon Novarro made his sound debut. This film was done like Warner Brothers The Jazz Singer where it was silent except for Al Jolson's musical numbers and some introductory dialog to one of them.

Novarro looked properly exotic and did exhibit a pleasant singing voice when he sang one of the first songs ever written expressly for the screen, Nacio Herb Brown's and Arthur Freed's The Pagan Love Song which was a big hit in 1929. Novarro sang in a few of his sound films after The Pagan.

Ramon plays a half Caucasian, half Tahitian lad who owns some land and a store courtesy of his white father, but prefers the lazy life the natives enjoy. Donald Crisp is a white trader with young native ward Dorothy Janis. Novarro and she are attracted to each other, but Crisp wants her brought up as a proper Christian and doesn't want her associating with her own kind. Actually he's got quite the yen himself for her.

At the same time The Pagan was being filmed Rain was on stage in the legitimate theater. The influence that W. Somerset Maugham's classic about the South Seas and particularly that of the character of Reverend Davidson on Crisp's screen persona is unmistakable.

Woody Van Dyke did a fine job of direction with his cast which also included Renee Adoree. He would soon be going to Africa for a trouble plagued shoot in Trader Horn, probably on the success he had bringing in this film shot in faraway places.

The Pagan holds up well and it's a piece of screen history besides.

In this funny, moving and magnificent film Ramon Novarro again proves that he was one of the best actors of the silent era. Physically he is more beautiful than any man has a right to be, but his beauty also comes from within because he projects a warmth and humanity that few actors can convey. The film itself is brilliantly directed by W.S. Van Dyke, with a witty and poignant screenplay. It is also quite subversive as the Christian is definitely the bad guy, and a life of pagan lust and laziness is held up as the ideal. And it is all superbly shot in Tahiti.

The three other stars are also fine. Donald Crisp is lecherous and loathsome, Dorothy Janis spectacularly beautiful and delightfully innocent, and Renee Adoree unforgettable as the "whore with a heart of gold". Her unrequited love for Novarro is subtlely conveyed and very moving. But Ramon's joy of life, he is truly gay in the old sense of the word, makes this film live. See it with someone you love.

Okay, they over-use the theme tune, but isn't it gorgeous?

Henry Shoesmith is THE PAGAN, a happy, handsome half-caste, perfectly attune with his South Seas home. Henry is also the owner of the largest cocoanut plantation on the island, which arouses the greed of an unscrupulous white trader with a beautiful native 'ward'...

Ramon Novarro is charming in this, his final silent film. Once again, MGM has their Mexican star playing another in his wide range of ethnic roles. Here he is a Polynesian, but he plays his part so well, and is obviously having such a good time, that he gives one of his most entertaining of performances.

He is served well by his excellent supporting cast. Dorothy Janis is Novarro's beautiful love interest - innocent, vulnerable & passionately in love. Donald Crisp is superb as the villainous white trader, consumed with lust for the girl he calls his 'Christian duty' and embittered with hatred for Novarro. His final fate is most proper & welcome. Renée Adorée scores as the island harlot, a staunch friend to both Novarro & Janis.

Directed by peripatetic W. S. Van Dyke, the location filming in & around Papeete, Tahiti enhances the story greatly.

Coming as it did at the very cusp of the new talkie era, this is essentially a silent film with an effective soundtrack that includes musical interludes & background dialogue. Novarro croons 'Pagan Love Song' (by Nacio Herb Brown & Arthur Freed) to good effect - giving Hollywood one of its first hit tunes - and his fine singing voice would be heard again in forthcoming films.