Drama of Life and Love In The Arctic

Manawatu Times, Volume 59, Issue 273, 21 November 1934, Page 5

Drama of Life and Love In The Arctic

“MALAY THE MAGNIFICENT” IS SOMETHING OUT OF THE USUAL

(Palace: Screening Saturday.)

The grandeur of the earth’s white mantle of snow at the North Pole is shown in vistas that will stir film audiences in “Malay the Magnificent,” great epic of the arctic filmed by Col. W. S. Van Dyke for the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios. Thousands of miles of ice and snow provide a background for the greatest record of a native

people ever made on the film. Gasps conic thick and fast for the audience as they thrill to panoramas that defy description. One scene shows the “Midnight Bun” streaking a track across the ice for fully two hundred miles with the figure of a native in the foreground dwarfed to a tiny speck. Other views show millions of tons of ice shifting and rearing- in the Spring ‘‘crack up” and endangering the lives of Eskimo hunters and fishermen.

Capt. Peter Freuchen's thrilling story of love and life among the natives in this northermost point inhabited by mankind has been faithfully and beautifully recorded. Particularly amazing is the moral code of these Eskimos, which permit a husband to have more than one wife. It serves as the root of one of the strongest dramatic situations ever to reach the talking screen. Mala, mighty hnnter ana teaaer of his tribe, is the centre of a powerful drama in which the wrong done to his Eskimo wife by a white man is vividly revenged. His tenderness of feeling for his family in early sequences won a sympathy that held the audience spellbound as the epic scenes unfolded. Great spectacles in the picture include the caribou charge in which more than 4,000 of the horned beasts go on tho rampage; walrus hunts in which native boats are overturned and men injured in attempts to escape knifesharp tusks; natives hunting whales in small boats; blizzards and icy hurricanes at temperatures that defied human life; polar bear hunts and native spear-fishing. Mala, the native Eskimo who heads the cast, is superb in physique and gives a performance that will startle the public used to Hollywood’s brand of actors.

Two roles of special interest are those of Inspector White, portrayed by Col. W. S. Van Dyke, and the captain of the whaling ship, played by Capt. Peter I'reuchen, author of the book on which the picture was based. Van Dyke has accomplished one of the most difficult jobs in direction ever attempted. He has blended the natives into a dramatic story that will be recognised as one of the screen’s greatest achievements.