The Green Goddess

George Arliss, pursing his lips and sneering and maintaining a dignity-through-deviltry poise, is the Brit-hating rajah in this high-flown adaptation of a silent in which he also starred. By today's standards, it's both melodramatic and hilariously racist, with the rajah and his subjects being both polite and murderous to three Brits who have crash-landed in the Himalayas and are about to be sacrificed for the concurrent deaths of three of Arliss's subjects. H.B. Warner and Ralph Forbes indulge in amusing early-talkie overacting, and Alice Joyce at least manages some minimal poignancy as the grieving, about-to-die mother of two kids she fears she'll never see again. It's typical of this early 20th century Western-centrism that Arliss's proposition to her--become my wife, and I'll spare your life--is a fate worse than death, and that she and Forbes, the pilot who crashed, belatedly confess their love for one another, for no discernible plot reason. The early-talkie recording and pacing are uncertain, and the ooga-booga natives are offensive. But is it fun? Oh, yes, mostly for the wrong reasons.