Eskimo

Little adherence to the story, plus cruel slaughter, but some of the best, legitimate Northern Alaska on-location shooting, directed by W.S. Van Dyke and photographed by Clyde De Vinna, George Gordon Nogle, Leonard Smith and Josiah Roberts for MGM, plus some odd process shots, in the first picture ever to win a Best Film Editing Academy Award, Eskimo, 1933.

Opening from MGM and W.S. Van Dyke, a prologue playing on the director’s success with earlier exotic features (White Shadows In The South Seas, 1928, and Trader Horn, 1931), including an untrue claim about casting, but a graceful enough introduction of his leads, Ray Wise (here known as Ray “Mala,” his character’s name) and Lulu Wong Wing his wife, in Eskimo, 1933.

Probably horrible but a significant plot point, Alaskan-born Ray Wise, who became known as Ray “Mala,” the name of his character in this picture, meets a fellow hunter who’s lost his wife, and graciously offers his own (Lulu Wong Wing as Aba), everyone en route to meet the white-man’s ship, W.S. Van Dyke directing on location in Northern Alaska, in Eskimo, 1933.

Director W.S. Van Dyke traveled to northwest Alaska for Eskimo (1933), using local Inuits to play the parts in the script.