South of Tahiti

Well, yes, the original script title is “White Savage” but this film has a different plot than the film made later with the title of “White Savage.” This one has four men drifting ashore, after their motorboat conked out, on an exotic south Pacific island—just south of Tahiti—where they meet a beautiful native girl, and both she and her pet leopard on this island are just pussycats. Anyway, the island is populated by some gentle folk who don’t care much for white people, but do tolerate them and even put up with some of their uncivil manners, but draw the line when a couple of them are looking for a way to make off with the island pearls, including Melahi, the native king’s daughter. It, of course, turns out she is really the daughter of a white man, and this is because the censors in 1941, weren’t going to give an approved-PCA seal to a film that had ant taboo inter-racial romancing as part of the plot.