White Savage *** (1943, Maria Montez, Jon Hall, Sabu, Turhan Bey, Thomas Gomez, Sidney Toler) – Classic Movie Review 3207

The 1943 Technicolor escapist fantasy adventure film White Savage reunites Maria Montez, Jon Hall and Sabu in a campy, colourful exotic tale. It is kind of the Raiders of the Lost Ark of its day.

Director Arthur Lubin’s 1943 Technicolor escapist fantasy adventure White Savage reunites Maria Montez, Jon Hall and Sabu after their 1942 hit with Arabian Nights. One of Universal Pictures’ camp and colourful exotic tales of the World War Two wartime years, it is kind of the Raiders of the Lost Ark of its day.

Montez stars as Princess Tahia, the empress and ruler of the tropical Temple Island, who makes short work of the various Westerners trying to steal from her and her innocent islander subjects. Hall plays the heroic shark hunting fisherman looking for their livers around the waters of Montez’s island, while Sabu is Orano.

Turhan Bey also stars as Tamara, while Thomas Gomez plays the villain Sam Miller, scheming to marry Tahia and get hold of the gold bars lining the submerged floor of the island’s temple.

And that’s before we get to the sharks, treasure and earthquakes!

With a screenplay written by Richard Brooks from a story by Peter Milne, this is full-throttle fun that doesn’t pause long enough to take itself too seriously and that cheerfully delivers all the familiar elements and more for a typically tempestuous tropical trip.

White Savage also co-stars Sidney Toler, Paul Guilfoyle, Don Terry, Constance Purdy, Al Kikume, Frederic Brunn and Pedro de Cordoba, along with Anthony Warde, John Harmon and Minerva Urecal.

The Technicolor cinematographers are Lester White and William Snyder, the producer is George Waggner, the score is by Frank Skinner and the choreography is by Lester Horton.

Alas, Montez’s costumes were considered too skimpy in some scenes, requiring the scenes to be cut out.

Cobra Woman (1944) followed with the same three stars and there would have been a fourth, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (1944), but Sabu joined the army and was replaced by this film’s co-star, Turhan Bey.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3207

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