The Savage is Loose (1974)

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Shipwrecked family becomes incestuous.

In 1902 John (George C. Scott) and his wife Maida (Trish Van Devere) take their infant son David (Lee H. Montgomery) on a sea cruise. Unfortunately the ship hits some rocks and sinks killing all those onboard except for the young family who manage to swim ashore to a deserted island. They make a home for themselves and slowly begin to age. By the time David reaches adolescence (now played by John David Carson) he begins to have sexual urges especially as he watches his father make love to his mother late at night. As his sexual feelings grow stronger he begins to lust after his own mother and compete with his father for her affections.

Unusual production that was directed by Scott and financed mostly with his own money. After the disaster of The Day of the Dolphin you’d think he’d have learned his lesson and gone with a script with a more mainstream storyline, but instead he dove into something that was sure to offend many and then proved incredulous when it didn’t score well with either the critics, or the box office. Despite starting the decade with an Academy Award win his career, especially after two financial duds back-to-back, began to peter-out after this one and he was really never able to regain his star status, or get offered top parts afterwards.

The film runs hot-and-cold. The opening is a bit cheesy as it features only a painting of a ship hitting some rocks and sinking, most likely the budget was too small to recreate an actual shipwreck, which surprisingly, despite the compromise, kind of works especially with the sound effects of the people screaming particularly the young child. It’s once they get on land that the action really begins to sink. The huts that they build, which we never actually see them make, but can only presume, look too well crafted, when factored in all the utensils, eating bowls, table, chairs, and even bamboo blinds, to have been built by two people with limited resources. It’s also hard to understand, with the front end of the ship still always in view, why they didn’t bother to create a raft, since their carpentry skills are clearly quite superior, in order to leave the island and find help. They eventually do, with relative ease but only after coming up with the idea 18 years later, but why the hell did it take them that long to eventually consider it?

The characters are quite dull and don’t have much to say and it would’ve helped had there been a fourth survivor on the island with them to allow for some diverse dramatic perspective, or even for some much needed comic relief. Montgomery plays the young David quite well, but Carson is terrible as the older version and fails to effectively convey the intense inner frustrations of his character and his acting delivery is robotic. Van Devere is okay as an actress, but her character fails to age. The father and certainly the son do have their appearances change, as you’d expect during almost two decades, but the mother remains youthful and glowing. Maybe this was done to keep her looking ‘desirable’ to the two men, but in reality she should’ve taken on gray hair and wrinkles especially after having to deal with all the stress and hardships of being stranded for some many years.

The incest theme is not handled in any type of interesting way. Instead of being this shocking twist that we’re not expecting it gets telegraphed right from the start and even ponderously talked about amongst all three of the characters until the viewer is totally expecting it to happen and to a degree even waiting for it. It’s confusing too why the son only has his eyes set on the mother. If his quandary is really just trying to release this strong sexual urges and having hardly anyone around to do it with then why doesn’t he try having sex with some of the animals that inhabit the island, or even the old man? Why not have sex, or at least attempt to, with all three at different times? Again, the movie wants to force the viewer out of their comfort zone by exposing the animalistic urges people can have, which in civilization will be repressed, but out in the wild it won’t. With that in mind then why not go ‘all-in’ and explore all the various types of perversions besides just the mother-son one?

Spoiler Alert!

While it remains strangely captivating, despite lots of lulls and slow spots, the ending doesn’t get played-up enough to make it worth it. I commend the idea, showing the mother deep kiss the grown son, but since they’re going for shock value why not show them from a bird’s eye view on the sand, naked and humping? Movies succeed by having unforgettable images and that would’ve been one hard to get out of most viewers heads. Having the father view them going at it was a bit ridiculous as he had been tied-up just moments earlier and trapped by a fast moving fire and no chance for escape, so how he was able to survive it is not clear and doesn’t make much sense.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: October 30, 1974

Runtime: 1 Hour 54 Minutes

Rated R

Director: George C. Scott

Studio: Campbell Devon Films

Available: DVD