Naked Paradise * (1957, Richard Denning, Beverly Garland, Lisa Montell, Leslie Bradley, Dick Miller, Jonathan Haze) – Classic Movie Review 3977

‘Temptation and terror… in a savage land of wild desire!’ Director Roger Corman’s 1957 Sunset Productions/ American International Pictures thriller stars Richard Denning and Beverly Garland as Duke Bradley and Max MacKenzie, with Lisa Montell as Lanai.

It co-stars Leslie Bradley as gangster Zach Cotton and Dick Miller and Jonathan Haze as his two henchmen, Mitch and Stony. This trio try to get a boat to get off a tropical island after a botched robbery heist.

Robert Wright Campbell’s script was rewritten by Charles B Griffith, who said that Corman later asked him to reuse his screenplay for Beast from Haunted Cave (1960) and Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961).

The 68-minute film was shot in Pathécolor for $100,000 in two weeks on location in Hawaii, back-to-back with She Gods of Shark Reef. The score is by Ronald Stein.

Samuel Z Arkoff, boss of American International Pictures, has a small role Sam (man at Luau) and Corman appears as an office worker.

The film was released as a double feature with Flesh and the Spur and re-released in 1960 as Thunder over Hawaii.

John Ireland, who owed a second film to Corman under their two film deal, was originally announced as the star.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3977

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