''Shipwrecked Among Cannibals'' is a 1920 American silent travel

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...

directed by William F. Alder, and released by

Universal Studios Universal Pictures (legally Universal City Studios LLC, also known as Universal Studios, or simply Universal; common metonym: Uni, and formerly named Universal Film Manufacturing Company and Universal-International Pictures Inc.) is an Ameri ...

in July 1920.

Production background

The film featured episodes from

Siam Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Mainland Southeast Asia, Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 mi ...

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

, and

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu Hiri Motu, also known as Police Motu, Pidgin Motu, or just Hiri, is a language of Papua New Guinea, which is spoken in surrounding areas of Port Moresby (Capital of Papua New Guinea). It is a simplified version of ...

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 well documented, bo ...

on a small island in the South Pacific. Filming among the tribes in

Dutch New Guinea Dutch New Guinea or Netherlands New Guinea ( nl, Nederlands-Nieuw-Guinea, id, Nugini Belanda) 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 Kingdo ...

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 era. He directed more than 60 films between 1920 and 1935. Biography Edward Laemmle was born in Chicago, Illinois and died in Los Angeles. He w ...

, who was the nephew of

Carl Laemmle Carl Laemmle (; born Karl Lämmle; January 17, 1867 – September 24, 1939) was a 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 most important o ...

, founder of Universal Studios.

Reception

Under the pretense of being an educational

ethnographic Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

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.

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 or short film that no longer exists in any studio archive, private collection, public archive or the U.S. Library of Congress. Conditions During most of the 20th century, U.S. copyright law required at least one copy o ...

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

Production background

Reception

Preservation status

See also

References

External links