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Watching this film, I was struck at the small similarities to Shakespeare's Tempest. A western figure of intelligence is cast into a distant land, and makes the spirits (here it is animals) his servants, constructing his own order. And just as the issue of race was present then, so it is here. The islanders are presented in a simplistic and racist manner, and the film's conception of gender is rather chauvinist. Witness how naturally the beautiful, nubile and innocent island girl, fleeing an arranged marriage to a boorish muscle-bound youth, takes to doing our Westerner's dishes! However, this fellow, portrayed ebulliently by an aging Douglas Fairbanks Sr., brings now books. Indeed, there is very little in his head apart from his principal goal. The single-mindedness and vapid goals of the film make the whole exercise into a chore. The cinematography is competent at best, but entirely dull most of the time. The humor is weak. A film for Fairbanks completists only. Turns out his voice, at least as shown here, was disappointingly squeaky. He didn't stand a chance, the poor soul.
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