The Savage Innocents

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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

Photos24

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Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
It was seeing this film, as an upcoming singer/songwriter, that inspired the young Bob Dylan to 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 in Lightning Over Water (1980)

Soundtracks
Sexy Rock
Written by Angelo Francesco Lavagnino and Mario Panzeri
Performed by Colin Hicks

User reviews34

Review

Featured review

8/10

The mighty Quinn

"The savage innocents" is Ray's last real movie, his two epics "King of Kings" and "55 days at Peking" ,in spite of their (often unfairly overlooked) qualities cannot be called "Nicholas Ray' s movies .The rest of his filmography includes a movie made with his students and the questionable Wenders collaboration "lightning over water" .

Not only Ray was the director whose influence was huge on the rock generation ("Rebel with a cause " was the first movie which rocked ,a feat for it was a work which did not include songs)but "savage innocents" inspired Bob Dylan a song which Manfred Mann made a big hit in the sixties.Mighty Quinn indeed.

Anthony Quinn was par excellence the perfect good all-around.a cursory look at his filmography is revealing:from Fellini's "La Strada" to his portrayal of Quasimodo in the French version of "Notre Dame de Paris" (Delannoy) From Barrabas (Fleischer)to an Eskimo.

Like so many Rayesque heroes ,Inuk does not follow the rules :in a way he is akin to the youngsters of "Rebel" ,to Davey Bishop ("Run for cover" ),to Nick ("Knock on any door" ) and of course to the outlaws ("the true story of Jesse James") .But anyway Inuk cannot follow the Whites' rules for ,in his naive innocence,he is incapable of understanding them,which proves they are not universal.Margaret Mead had already showed that what is good and what is bad is not the same wherever you live in the world.

.My favorite scene is the priest trying to make the "savage" understand that he's lived a life of sin: what can a tale of long ago and far away mean for a man whose life is a constant struggle against a hostile nature ? It's the same pragmatism which we find in Luis Bunuel's Oeuvre.

"The savage innocents " is half documentary half fiction;the documentary side shows its age :correct me if I am wrong but "Eskimo" (=raw meat eater) is not a term the Inuit would appreciate nowadays.Besides,they did not live in igloos which were only used during the hunting season.Entirely filmed in studio ,the pictures are magnificent though,a real symphony in white.The white color dominates everything (tinged with blue)except for this extremely moving scene when it turns black when the old woman is left in the snow to die (it will remind the young cine buffs of Imamura's "Narayama Bushiko" (1983)).

"The savage innocents " sets the nature and its quietness -although it's a cruel mistress;when you fight a bear,it's you or him-against the "civilization" here represented by alcohol,pop music ,money and the Law.Ray had already been an ecologist ahead of his time in "Wind across the everglades" These two works are like "twin movies" and should be seen one after the other.

After all "King of Kings" was also perhaps a Ray movie:Jesus himself was not born to follow the rules.