Shipwrecked Among Cannibals
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''Shipwrecked Among Cannibals'' is a 1920 American silent travel
documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...
directed by William F. Alder, and released by
Universal Studios Universal Studios may refer to: * Universal Studios, Inc., an American media and entertainment conglomerate ** Universal Pictures, an American film studio ** Universal Studios Lot, a film and television studio complex * Various theme parks operat ...
in July 1920.


Production background

The film featured episodes from
Siam Thailand, officially the Kingdom of Thailand and historically known as Siam (the official name until 1939), is a country in Southeast Asia on the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula. With a population of almost 66 million, it spa ...
,
Java Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...
, and
New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...
plus an apparently fictitious encounter with
cannibals Cannibalism is the act of consuming another individual of the same species as food. Cannibalism is a common ecological interaction in the animal kingdom and has been recorded in more than 1,500 species. Human cannibalism is also well documente ...
on a small island in the
South Pacific The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...
. Filming among the tribes in
Dutch New Guinea Dutch New Guinea or Netherlands New Guinea (, ) was the western half of the island of New Guinea that was a part of the Dutch East Indies until 1949, later an overseas territory of the Kingdom of the Netherlands from 1949 to 1962. It contained ...
was done by William F. Alder and
Edward Laemmle Edward Laemmle (October 25, 1887 – April 2, 1937) was an American film director of the silent film, silent era. He directed more than 60 films between 1920 and 1935. Biography Laemmle was born in Chicago, Illinois, and died in Los Angeles ...
, who was the nephew of
Carl Laemmle Carl Laemmle (; born Karl Lämmle ; January 17, 1867 – September 24, 1939) was a German-American film producer and the co-founder and, until 1934, owner of Universal Pictures. He produced or worked on over 400 films. Regarded as one of the ...
, founder of Universal Studios.


Reception

Under the pretense of being an educational
ethnographic Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...
film, film producers have often justified exploitative elements such as half-clad natives in South Seas island documentaries. At least one educational publication, which appeared to take the film as fully authentic, suggested that this film could with review be used in schools. Although ''Shipwrecked Among Cannibals'' generally received good reviews, it did not do well at the box office; however, other accounts say the film was a financial success.


Preservation status

With no listing in any film archives,Library of Congress American Silent Feature Film Survival Database: ''Shipwrecked Among Cannibals''
/ref> ''Shipwrecked Among Cannibals'' is a
lost film A lost film is a feature film, feature or short film in which the original negative or copies are not known to exist in any studio archive, private collection, or public archive. Films can be wholly or partially lost for a number of reasons. ...
.


See also

*
Nudity in film In film, nudity may be either graphic or suggestive, such as when a person appears to be naked but is covered by a sheet. Since the birth of film, depictions of any form of sexuality have been controversial, and in the case of most nude scenes, ...


References


External links

* 1920 films 1920 documentary films Black-and-white documentary films Universal Pictures films American black-and-white films American silent feature films American documentary films 1920s American films {{silent-documentary-film-stub