Year: 1929-30
Cast: George Arliss, HB Warner, Ralph Forbes, Alice Joyce, Ivan F. Simpson, Reginald Sheffield, Betty Boyd, Nigel De Brulier
Director: Alfred E. Green
Nominations: Best Actor (Arliss)
So this is a movie...made in the 20's...starring all white people...about a remote tribe in the Himalayas...with a central villain called the Raja.
I knew what I was in for before I even started, and I was right. This is just...unpleasant. By the standards of its time it wasn't bad, in the sense that a good deal of effort went into making it, and the actors and direction are competent, but still...picture what 1920's rich white Americans thought the "dark tribal" Himalayas were like and you'll get an idea of how gross the whole thing feels.
It's a pretty standard adventure/intrigue tale, about three English people (HB Warner, Ralph Forbes and Alice Joyce) who crash-land their toy airplane while also inside their real plane (no really, the crash is so obviously a toy; watch how it bounces) in a remote (fictional) region of the Himalayas known as Rukh. There, the "hoo-yah-hoo-yah" natives bring them before their Raja (George Arliss), who welcomes them with seeming open arms, but there's something a bit sinister about him, and it's not that he's a white-as-snow Englishman himself, who speaks English perfectly well with a strong Received Pronunciation British accent.
Can he be trusted? Would he be portrayed on the poster so alien and threatening if that were the case?
In all fairness, this movie has a lot to say about British Imperialism and the belief of the white aristocrat that he is lord of all the world, but considering it's delivered from the mouth of a white British man, this undercuts the message somewhat.
This movie more or less confirms for me what I had already suspected; the nominations were handed out to actors this year for any work that could be considered a lead role. Why else would they nominate Arliss for this movie? Or Maurice Chevalier for The Big Pond? It certainly wasn't just due to it being a different time; Wallace Beery and Ronald Colman's performances still hold up. This was just plain hard to watch, and for the first time since I began this project I debated not finishing. Its short length is all that kept me going.
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