Picturegoer (1934)

January 13, 1934 PICTUREGOER Weekly Above : The production unit on exterior location filming Eskimos in their native village in Alaska. Left : A giant polar bear, trapped by the expedition, is hauled aboard the " Nanuk." house built of logs which had served as a trading centre many years before. "The real storehouse remained the Nanuk, where all the food and apparatus was put in specially made ice-boxes and deep holds. These were held in safe position by the surrounding ice floes. "When winter rolled by — and this was not long, since we arrived toward the end of June and the northern winter begins as early as midSeptember — it was necessary to shift headquarters. "Here, again, it was impossible to live as the Eskimos, since the winter igloos are made of stone, chinked and covered with moss and banked with snow, and built halfway underground. The entrance is a long passage high enough to admit a man crawlingonhis hands and knees. The construction of these is a lengthy undertaking which scarcely seemed worth while in view of the fact that we were not scheduled to stay for more than four additional months or so. "Bag and baggage, we moved over to the Nanuk and stayed there until February. " "Living on the ship was hardly a paradise, since violent winds would periodically throw the vessel far but of its course and make the return a long and wearisome struggle. "Almost as frequently we would be completely frozen in and unable to move until the sun shone with sufficient intensity to break the ice. "But there was a heating apparatus on the boat and a radio, and this made things a little more tolerable than they might have been in the heatless igloos. "The only really native construction we were obliged to do came when we set about photographing the interiors of ice huts. "With ice-saws, chisels and picks we bisected the tops of the spherical dwellings, then placed cameras opposite the opening, turned the lights into them and hung up the microphones. "In addition to buying each such hut with bacon and other goods, the studio mechanics had to help the evicted owner build another ! "The manufacture of ice houses is not a very lengthy process. The form is hollowly circular and the material is nothing but snow. "A roaring fire is built inside until the snow begins to melt and drip. The fire is stamped out, the door left open, and the midnight frost transforms the structure into solid ice. These dwellings are not permanent; they are made only by travellers or itinerant hunters and serve simply as resting places when the weather makes movement impossible. "They are so easy to make that often this task is entrusted solely to the woman or women of the tribe. " If the members of the film expedition did not live as the Eskimos, they at least dressed like them, with underskins of fur and enormously cumbersome over-garments — but this failed to keep them as warm as they chose to feel, so that they kept running inside to the heating apparatus every ten minutes or so. "For a picture taken so spasmodically and with sa many atmospheric obstacles, Eskimo is at the very least an achievement in sheer continuity. "The only actual troubles in filming the picturer were atmospheric; sudden sunlight would melt the ice houses; extreme winds would blow the vessel miles out of its course; intense cold would freeze us in and make all travel impossible. "Controlling our own men and controlling the Eskimos was about the most complicated concern we had. But Col. Van Dyke, our wonderfully careful director, attended to both of these points with his usual shrewdness. "For those periods when work couldn't be done he created over a dozen engrossing activities for our forty-two people, ranging from cribbage to ice polo. "And when the Eskimos became a little recalcitrant — such as the time when they decided out of a clear sky that they were going to strike for higher wages than $5 a day — Van Dyke knew how to show them either that they were quite dispensable or that they had a great deal to gain by staying ; bacon, oranges, corn cakes and other foods they had grown to like. "The result was that, by the time all our filming had been done, we were living in perfect harmony together and had to tear ourselves away. " T feel that it has all been well worth while and A hope that when you see the picture you will agree with me. "Mr. W. S. Van Dyke has certainly lived up to the reputation he has made with such features as White Shadows in the South Seas, and Trader Horn. "He has brought vividly to the screen the life of these little-known people and invested the theme with a wealth of strong drama and romance." 15