A Modern Peep at the South Seas: Melville’s Presence in some Hollywood Films from 1920s to the 1940s

Jaime Campomar

doi:10.59045/nalans.2024.51

Authors

Jaime Campomar The George Washington University Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.59045/nalans.2024.51

Keywords:

Herman Melville, adaptation, film, advertising, race

Abstract

This paper will argue that alongside Melville’s literary reputation, Hollywood, and its associated industries (advertising, trade and journalistic press), produced a pop-culture image of him. It will analyze two movies, Last of the Pagans (MGM, 1935) and Omoo-Omoo the Shark God (Esla Pictures, 1949), which were publicized as adaptations of Typee (1846) and Omoo (1847) respectively but have on the surface little or nothing to do, thematically or plotwise, with their purported source texts. They can be linked back to the novels through the use of a Melville meme that recreates pre-colonial life in the South Seas, situating viewers within a taxidermic viewing position. Overall, scholars have disregarded these movies as having little to offer Melville studies, but this article will consider them and their many forms of publicity to demonstrate that they can give scholars a glance at Melville’s popular reputation as adventurer and romancer, and it will suggest that, as a national figure, Melville was not the exclusive property of academia but a contested site for the construction of national ideals. The paper will adopt a combination of approaches from film history, fluid text theory, and adaptation studies to analyze Melville’s image across mass media outfits.

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