By 
The Savage is Loose (1974) is another movie starring George C. Scott where he did double-duty and manned the director’s chair. What did you get yourself into with this one, Georgie-boy? I know the 1970s were a proving ground for films that weren’t afraid to go dark, but…yikes!
Major spoilers will happen.
The Savage is Loose
The Blue Lagoon came out in 1980. It was about a boy and girl shipwrecked on a desert island. Nature takes its course as they come of age and realize men and women have compatible parts. Things do not end well. The Blue Lagoon was fairly controversial and panned by critics.
The Savage is Loose, perhaps, laid the template for The Blue Lagoon. In this case, a man, his wife and son become shipwrecked on a desert island. The son grows to be a man and things get Oedipal. The Savage is Loose was also controversial and panned by critics.
Gene Siskel gave the film 1.5 stars out of 4 and called it “a pretentious potboiler” with characters that have “no identity other than sex-starved or sex-threatened.” He ranked it behind only The Trial of Billy Jack on his year-end list of the worst films of 1974.
Pauline Kael wrote that the film “crawls by in slightly under two hours, but they’re about as agonizing as any two hours I’ve ever spent at the movies… Scott has to take the rap for his crapehanger’s direction and for not knowing better than to buy this script, but the scriptwriters, Max Ehrlich and Frank De Felitta, really ought to have their names inscribed in a special hall of infamy.”
The Savage Harvest is Loose
Coincidentally enough, Ehrlick wrote The Apple episode of Star Trek, which DrunkenYoda recently reviewed. Ehrilick worked mainly in TV and as a novelist.
De Felitta was a novelist, as well, and dallied as a film director. His works include The Entity, Dark Night of the Scarecrow, and even a Sharon Stone film, Scissors.
Kael is not too far off in her analysis. The Savage is Loose is a bit of a bore as far as storytelling goes. Siskel also hit the nail on the head with his use of “potboiler.” The Savage is Loose truly is a movie one watches with a singular interest: how are they going to deal with the incest?
Otherwise, no real stakes are raised in the lives of the shipwrecked family. Their day-to-day life is fairly idyllic. They’ve built themselves some nice huts. They have plenty of food. The weather is nice. There is a brief flirtation with danger when it comes to wild animals, which also serves as the hinge-point for the boy’s eventual turn, but other than that, the plot is as bareboned as [insert latest anorexic actress].
The Savage Harvest Moon is Loose
As far as George C. Scott’s acting goes, he raises little to complain about. Scott is a natural actor and commands the camera whenever it is on him. His direction is much more retrained than it was with Rage. He displays a lot less flair here, and when he gets a bit arty, it serves the story well.
Scott’s real-life wife, Trish Van Devere, plays the mother. She has the most to do in the movie. While Scott’s character is somewhat content on the island, she longs to return to civilization. She is continually on an emotional see-saw as she tries to maintain the family unit by loving her husband, being strong for him and her son, navigating the tricky sexual landscape and maintaining hope they could be rescued.
This hope is manifested in how she educates her son about the ways of the world. The question is raised on whether or not it is a good idea to pass such hope on to her son. Ignorance is bliss when it comes to his situation. If he doesn’t know what he is missing, then he wouldn’t miss it.
In the case of The Savage is Loose, it is more than lust that is the son’s downfall. It is the glimpse of enlightenment he receives, only to have it snatched away by the father. This relates to the hinge-point mentioned earlier on. When the boy is nearly killed by a wild animal, Scott realizes that he is not helping the boy by teaching him about civilization and, naturally, the ethics that come with it. Scott realizes he must teach the boy how to survive at all costs instead.
This has bad repercussions for all, as personal morality is the main gate holding back baser instincts, if there is no society to maintain law and order and provide healthy outlets.
The Savatage Is Loose
Lee Montgomery plays the boy at a young age. Montgomery was the boy Oliver Reed almost drowned in Burnt Offerings. Is there anything scarier than being accosted by a drunken Reed?
Montgomery is fine in the role. He plays an innocent well and is fairly sympathetic as he strings bits of knowledge together that is simple to him but frightening within the greater scope of things. For example, when he asks his mother if he could marry her someday, he has no creepiness behind the question. It is simply a natural question to him with the data at hand.
Yet, it is highly uncomfortable for the adults in the room.
John David Carson Carson (Empire of the Ants, Pretty Woman) plays the boy as a man. He has little to do but play peeping tom as Scott and Van Devere engage in marital relations. This causes the family to eventually fracture and do what they can to deal with the young man’s growing lust. This mostly involves them moving into separate quarters and looking pensively at one another.
Eventually, all of this becomes too much for everyone. Van Devere attempts to be a peacemaker, but when she comes upon the homemade sex doll her son has made, there is no coming back from that for anyone. One of the men on the island has to go, and the mom is the prize.
The Savage Garden is Loose
And here we come to the rub of the matter: how does The Savage is Loose ultimately end. The Van Devere blocks the spear of Scott and prevents him from killing the boy. You don’t need a protractor to figure out the phallic symbolism of that.
Scott, who is seriously burned and will probably die, then grasps Van Devere’s hand, only for their grips to pull apart. Van Devere then passionately kisses her son.
The viewer has doubts they will ever be rescued. Even if they escape the island, there is no escaping the dynamic that have given themselves to in their desperation.
That Savage is Every Which Way But Loose
Despite being Oedipal, The Savage is Loose borrows none of the drama, irony or tragedy prevalent in the play Oedipus Rex. In fact, the movie seems engineered to simply be controversial. One gets the feeling it was made on a dare.
Nevertheless, Scott seemed to believe in the film to the point of putting his money where his mouth was. When the MPAA gave the film an “R” rating, Scott was appalled. He did not believe anything he put onscreen warranted the same rating as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Scott took out full-page ads in various cities that said he would refund any ticket personally to any parents who took a child under 17 to The Savage is Loose and agreed with the R rating. Supposedly, Scott paid out less than $10,000 with this guarantee.
Ultimately, The Savage is Loose is only loosely worth watching as a curiosity. It tries to tackle a pitch dark subject, but it is a subject that most folks would rather remain in the dark about…
The post Retro-Review: THE SAVAGE IS LOOSE (1974) appeared first on Last Movie Outpost.
