The Savage Innocents

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YOUR RATING

An Eskimo who has had little contact with white men goes to a trading post where he accidentally kills a missionary and finds himself being pursued by the police.An Eskimo who has had little contact with white men goes to a trading post where he accidentally kills a missionary and finds himself being pursued by the police.An Eskimo who has had little contact with white men goes to a trading post where he accidentally kills a missionary and finds himself being pursued by the police.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

6.8/10

2.1K

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 win & 1 nomination

Trivia
It was seeing this film, as an upcoming singer/songwriter, that inspired the youngBob Dylanto write the song "The Mighty Quinn (Quinn the Eskimo)."

Goofs
After giving the bear the baited food, Inuk initially chases it empty handed, then appears with a spear.

Quotes
First Trooper:Inuk. listen. No judge in the world will understand you offering another man your wife.
Inuk:But it is our custom, we must be polite. White men don't borrow other men's wives?
First Trooper:Never mind that. You don't lend your wife as if she were a sled.
Inuk:Oh ho ho, someone would rather lend his wife than his sled. You lend your sled, it comes back cracked. You lend your knife, it comes back dull. You lend your dogs, they come back tired and crawling. But if you love your wife, no matter how often you lend her, she always comes back like new.
Inuk:[embraces Asiak]
Inuk:Man, man, you don't understand?
Inuk:I understand. But the other men live by the book, and there you are a murderer
Inuk:But we must make them understand, otherwise Papik, Asiak and me cannot go into other men's igloos, that is OUR law.
Inuk:We change the book, huh?
[to Asiak as he prepares to go out]
Inuk:You bring the food
[Exits]
First Trooper:[to Asiak]They'll never understand.
Asiak:[as she exits the doorway of igloo]When you come to a strange land, you should bring your wives, and not your laws.

Connections
Referenced inLightning Over Water(1980)

Soundtracks
Sexy Rock
Written byAngelo Francesco LavagninoandMario Panzeri
Performed byColin Hicks

User reviews34

Review

Featured review

7/10

More documentary than fiction

I saw this movie many years ago. My recollection of it is that is a documentary comment on the interface of two widely different cultures. I also just finished reading Kabloona a book written by a white Frenchman in the later 1930s about the Eskimo Culture. The points made in the book confirm those points made in the movie. The Eskimo apparently is a guileless innocent whose life consists primarily of staying alive and fed. The innocence of these people was highlighted in the scene where Anthony Quinn came back to his igloo and found that his wife had given birth. He asked her the baby's name and when she told him, he responded in amazement, "How did you know?" As far as the scene where a man's hands were stuffed into a recently killed dog is concerned, the speed with which freezing occurs at 50 below zero is not to be believed. That scene demonstrates the fact that the Eskimo regards his dogs as livestock and useful. Shocking, but apparently realistic.