The Pagan

The Pagan is a 1929 silent/part talking romantic drama filmed in Tahiti and produced and distributed by Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Both director W. S. Van Dyke and cinematographer Clyde De Vinna had previously visited Tahiti in 1928 to film White Shadows in the South Seas. The Pagan stars Ramón Novarro.

The film has a slight resemblance in story to an earlier Novarro silent, Where the Pavement Ends (1923), directed by Rex Ingram and now lost.

Plot

Trader Henry Slater (Donald Crisp) stops at a South Pacific island looking to obtain a cargo of copra. He is informed that half-caste Henry Shoesmith, Jr. (Ramon Novarro) owns the largest plantation, but is rather indolent.

Meanwhile, Shoesmith is lolling around, while admirer Madge (Renée Adorée), wishes she had met him before she became a fallen woman. Then the young man hears a woman singing aboard a ship. He swims out and is strongly attracted to Tito (Dorothy Janis). She, however, rebuffs him.

When the narrow-minded Slater first meets Shoesmith, he is quite rude to the native, but soon changes his manner when he learns who the young man is. The easygoing Shoesmith does not take offense, and is delighted to be formally introduced to Tito, Slater's half-caste ward. Slater starts to bargain for copra and is pleasantly surprised when Shoesmith offers him as much as he wants for free. He takes the precaution of having Shoesmith sign a contract to that effect.

The Pagan Christ

The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light is a 2004 non-fiction book by Canadian writer Tom Harpur (born 1929), a former Anglican priest, journalist and professor of Greek and New Testament at the University of Toronto, which supports the Christ myth theory. W. Ward Gasque described him as "perhaps the leading religion writer in Canada". Harpur claims that the New Testament shares a large number of similarities with ancient Egyptian and other pagan religions, that early Church leaders fabricated a literal and human Jesus based on ancient myths, and that we should return to an inclusive and universal religion where the spirit of Christ or Christos lives within each of us.

The book was named the Canadian non-fiction bestseller of the year by both the Toronto Star (appearing 52 weeks on the bestseller list) and The Globe and Mail (43 weeks on the bestseller list). It was later released under the title The Pagan Christ: Is Blind Faith Killing Christianity? in the United States by Walker Books and in Australia by Allen Unwin. It has also been published in five foreign languages: in Montreal ("Le Christ païen") by Éditions du Boréal, in the Netherlands ("De heidense Christus") by Ankh-Hermes bv, in Germany ("Der heidnische Heiland") by Ansata Verlag, in Brazil ("O Cristo Dos Pagaos") by Editora Cultrix-Pensamento and in Japan (異教キリスト) by Basilico. In 2007, the book became the basis for a CBC documentary, and that same year, Harpur published a more scholarly sequel entitled Water Into Wine: An Empowering Vision of the Gospels.