Bird of Paradise ** (1932, Dolores del Rio, Joel McCrea, John Halliday) – Classic Movie Review 8365

A very young and handsome looking Joel McCrea stars as adventurer Johnny Baker, who marries lovely South Sea island princess Luana (Dolores Del Rio) when he visits her island, in director King Vidor’s unpersuasive, silly 1932 tropical romantic adventure Bird of Paradise. Unfortunately, then Luana is chosen to be sacrificed to the local volcano god, which kind of gets in the way of romance.

Vidor makes it look pretty in black and white and erotic for its day in the pre-Code era, but the sacrificing of native girls to appease the volcano god seems comic today, so it could only really be good for a giggle, though its daftness could be quite appealing.

Also in the cast are John Halliday, Richard ‘Skeets’ Gallagher, Lon Chaney Jr [Creighton Chaney], Bert Roach, Sofia Ortega, Agostino Borgato, Napoleon Pukui, Wade Boteler, Arnold Gray and Reginald Simpson.

The screenplay by Wells Root, Leonard Praskins and Wanda Tuchock is based on the play by Richard Walton Tully.

It was the story that Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) was sending up.

The wild tribal dances are choreographed by Busby Berkeley.

It is the film debut of Lon Chaney Jr, credited under his real name of Creighton Chaney.

Del Rio is supposedly nude in the underwater love scene, leading to complaints by Catholic bishops and the formation of the Catholic Legion of Decency in 1933. Even so, it lost an estimated $250,000 for RKO.

The native village huts were reused for King Kong (1933).

After seeing the film, Orson Welles publicly said Del Rio was ‘the highest erotic ideal’ for any red-blooded male and started a relationship with her eight years later.

Vidor originally took the cast and crew to Hawaii to shoot exteriors but, when the weather turned sour, authentic location filming was abandoned and continued in the RKO studios. Production began with an incomplete script.

It fell into the public domain in 1960.

It was remade as Bird of Paradise in 1951, with Louis Jourdan, Debra Paget and Jeff Chandler.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8365

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