The Blonde Captive
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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The Blonde Captive is a 1931 American controversial pre-Code film directed by Clinton Childs, Ralph P. King, Linus J. Wilson, and Paul Withington. The film took previously released anthropological footage of native peoples in the Pacific and Australia, and added a sensationalized storyline.
After its 1947 re-screening the film went missing. A full print of the film was later discovered and made commercially available on DVD in 2010. It is also viewable online on YouTube.
Plot
The film is narrated by explorer Lowell Thomas. Dr. Paul Withington of Harvard University and archaeologist Clinton Childs conduct an anthropological expedition to Australia. The film opens with the men discussing the exhibition in "the explorers club". The exhibition hopes to travel and then find the people on earth most related to the ancient Neanderthals. Sailing from the west coast of North America, the expedition filmed indigenous peoples and customs of the islands along the way. The documentary stops in Hawaii and shows Native Hawaiians. It then stops in Bali, where topless Balinese women are shown as they go about their daily life. Also visited are Fijians in Fiji, and Māori living traditionally in New Zealand.
The documentary arrives in Sydney, and the harbor and city are shown. The documentary then traveling by train to Ooldea where they filmed Aboriginal Australians living in the desert. They then travel to Broome and visit the Aboriginal settlement of Boolah Boolah. They then sail to the Timor Sea and film indigenous people fishing. A dugong is cut up, and a sea turtle is dissected alive. The expedition returns to the mainland, where they again meet Aborigines "who have not lost their cannibal instincts." Examining the faces of Aborigines, with flashbacks to an anthropology book, the documentary declares that it has found the people on earth most resembling mankind's ancestor, the Neanderthals.
Hearing rumors of a white woman living with an Aboriginal tribe, the expedition eventually makes its way to a very remote area where they find a white woman who is the sole survivor of a shipwreck. The woman is married to a tribal Aborigine and is mother to his blond-haired child. After inquiring about her welfare, she refuses to return to civilization with them.
Cast
- Lowell Thomas as himself (narrator)
- Dr. Paul Withington as himself
- Clinton Childs as himself
