It is based on the books Der Eskimo and Die Flucht ins weisse Land by Danish explorer and author Peter Freuchen.

Scholar Peter Geller has more recently criticized the film as depicting the Eskimo as childlike, simple, and mythic "noble savages" rather than as human beings.

Mala and Aba travel by dog sled to the trading ship with their children, and encounter an old friend whose wife died about a month before.

Several white men accuse the Eskimos of being savage and without morals and charge Mala with the murder of the ship's captain.

Sergeant Hunt and Constable Balk try to find Mala and arrest him but nearly freeze to death in a blizzard.

However, the rigid and rule-bound Inspector White has arrived at the RCMP outpost and demands that Kripik not be allowed to hunt and chains him at night.

Hunt tells Balk that the ice will take Kripik and Iva across the inlet, and both will be able to return to Orsodikok next spring.

Following is a list of the cast members:[2][3] The script for Eskimo was based on books by Danish explorer and author Peter Freuchen.

He wrote to his uncle, John Charles Van Dyke, on May 24, 1932, "Am going to film Peter Freuchen's book Eskimo.

However, MGM production chief Irving Thalberg worried that intertitles were too distracting and would seem old-fashioned, and Stromberg agreed.

[12] A young native Alaskan was hired for the role, but he walked off the set in July 1932 when the stress of filming proved too great.

He was hired as a guide for Eskimo's production to Alaska, and was able to offer his services to the film when the original actor quit.

[13] Originally known as the Ottilie Fjord, the schooner would next be modified to a ship rig and later used as HMS Pandora in the 1935 production of Mutiny on the Bounty,[16] and rerigged for the 1937 film Maid of Salem.

[18] The crew included 42 cameramen and technicians, six airplane pilots, and Emil Ottinger — a chef from the Roosevelt Hotel.

[4] The production took 50 stone (700 lb) (0.32 metric tonnes) of food with them to Alaska, as well as medical supplies, a mobile film processing laboratory, and sound recording equipment.

[13] At one point, a sudden warm spell melted the igloos the production set up to house cast and cameras.

[15] Although cinematographer Clyde DaVinna is credited with the cinematography, additional footage was shot by George Gordon Nogle, Josiah Roberts, and Leonard Smith.

[3] Screenwriter John Lee Mahin claims he shot a few of the scenes with Eskimo women when coverage was found to be lacking.

[22] Numerous days of shooting were lost in the summer when strong sunlight made it impossible to film.

The bowhead whale hunt was filmed from late April to July 1933 in two locations: Off Point Hope, Alaska, and off Cape Serdtse-Kamen on the Chukchi Peninsula.

[15] As depicted in the film, the Inupiat also hunted polar bears by roping and drowning them, but little of this footage made it into the picture.

Freuchen says that Mala, armed with a rock and a pistol beneath his fur jacket, spent three afternoons trying to lure a wolf into attacking him.

The production staff visited San Francisco, California, to identify an actress for a minor female part.

[28] Dortuk, Elik, Kemasuk, Nunooruk, and four other Inupiat actors were brought to California to act in the reshoots and new scenes.

Lobby cards in theaters contained lurid descriptions: "The strangest moral code on the face of the earth — men who share their wives but kill if one is stolen!

The script managed to sustain interest in the various scenes, he was surprised to find moments of "genuinely effective comedy", and he found the acting by native people "really extraordinary".

He singled out Ray Mala, Lulu Wong Wing, and Lotus Long for being particularly effective in conveying emotion.

[32] Other reviews were also generally positive, but nearly all critics compared the film to other motion pictures (such as Igloo and Nanook of the North) which had also captured exquisite scenery and scenes of Inupiat people.

[33] To many critics of the day, the footage of tribal customs and hunting actually made Eskimo a documentary film rather than a drama.

[34] Scholar Peter Geller has more recently criticized the film as depicting the Eskimo as childlike, simple, and mythic "noble savages" rather than as human beings.