Public Domain Movies

White Shadows in the South Seas is a 1928 American synchronized sound romantic adventure film directed by W.S. Van Dyke and starring Monte Blue and Raquel Torres.

Dr. Matthew Lloyd, an alcoholic doctor, is disgusted by white traders' exploitation of native pearl divers on a Polynesian island. The traders give the divers well below the value of the pearls while the divers suffer numerous injuries, some fatal, from the sea bed and from diving without breathing equipment.

When a diver is gravely injured, Sebastian, a leading trader, is indifferent, demanding that the other divers keep working. When Lloyd remonstrates, Sebastian threatens him, demands he leave the island and swings a punch at him. Later, the diver dies despite Lloyd's treatment but the traders have a party all the same.

Sebastian tricks Lloyd onto an arriving ship by saying they have measles. His men tie the doctor up and send the ship off unmanned. Lloyd survives a storm and is washed ashore on an island where none of the natives has ever seen a white man.

Cast
Monte Blue as Dr. Lloyd
Raquel Torres as Fayaway
Robert Anderson as Sebastian
Renee Bush as Fayaway's friend (uncredited)