Bird of Paradise (1932)

User Rating:

6.1/10   

Director:

King Vidor

Writers:

Richard Walton Tully (play) and
Leonard Praskins (writer)

Release Date:

12 August 1932 (USA)

Genre:

Adventure | Romance | Drama

Plot:

A native girl falls for a visitor to her island, but she's chosen to be sacrificed to the volcano god.

Plot Keywords:

Volcano | Island | Forced Marriage | Human Sacrifice | Daughter

Cast

Dolores del Rio	...	Luana
Joel McCrea	...	Johnny Baker
John Halliday	...	Mac
Richard 'Skeets' Gallagher	...	Chester
Bert Roach	...	Hector
Lon Chaney Jr.	...	Thornton (as Creighton Chaney)
Wade Boteler	...	Skipper Johnson
Arnold Gray	...	Walker
Reginald Simpson	...	O'Fallon
Napoleon Pukui	...	The King
Agostino Borgato	...	Medicine Man
Sofia Ortega	...	Mahumahu

Runtime:

80 min | USA:82 min (FMC Library Print)

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Photophone System)

Certification:

USA:Passed (National Board of Review) | Canada:PG (Ontario)

Filming Locations:

Hawaii, USA

Company:

RKO Radio Pictures

Trivia:

The production began principal photography without an complete script.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Dolores del Río - Princesa de México (1999)

Before it happens and civilization go away

"Bird of paradise" (1932) directed by King Vidor represents an anthropological islet in his extensive cinematographer kind of a tree is a tree free speech about species, yet in a second class civilization for South sea adventure. Whose main characters of a sailor and a local flower power, before its female expansion isn't enough for the intriguing father from the clan. This is old green valley in present times, but with an enchantment that for us is still with an accented galvanization for marriage between cultures and how being careful with prejudice, trade and palms like in the time of Cook travel, linked with affection for the nature and brigandage. The geography of this well populated island it is the main fortified part of this exotic story and the plot works with a sense of orientation from the main characters. Being pursued by a group of natives at the orders of the chief, whilst the other small group is composed by the adventurer, the lover girl - daughter of the chief - and their supporters.

This is why this movie is astonishingly new for the age it must have now since the time that it was made, as almost like a special one artisan's outfit of the patronized conception of the innovative studios production. Even the eroticism of some scenes with the naked shoulders of the girl, it were very unusual and as fresh current of open air from the concealed forests of the island, near the sands of the shores with palms and beaches, as rarely we could see at the time of mingled forced marriages. Well, Vidor put the finger on the incomprehension and gives us some speed and strength, as dramatic lightening for communication between peoples before electrification, when things were still for the worst after the debacle of illusions. One of the scenes that touch me is when the communication is difficult, because the separate languages and for explaining how it works on a given plan it was by signs, like pictorial symbols at the age of caverns and tattoos, what get feelings between inhabitants and the maritime foreigner in spite of a potential love affair, that took the island in fire and tears, if the good mind and presence of spirit facing differences was not in the right place, as it were by the story among main characters, such in this scene of transition.

This is the kind of narrative that shows us the boundaries of forced integration and it seems, even now, the immense complex problem that at the time was the idea of a savage with bow and arrow pointed to a civilized man, half naked on the ground in a warrior ritual, with a local tribe crying against the intrusion of this human kind in their closed rules. Perturbing the primitive life there without any ceremony and knowing nothing about why he was caught, in his own trap of curiosity and observation of that recurred society of consumption, where flesh it was good enough for its smell on the fire by night, as sacrifice calming the volcano eruption, watched from not far away over the night during this cannibalistic ritual, simulating an exchange in such a disconnected mentalities. Director King Vidor makes it by generosity of a new dramatic standing, for showing here boundaries in the spirit of hunters. When things are reversed on the habitat of such a melodic structure, about the childhood of common humanity, in a talkie movie that roars well with choreography of such a dance with naked feet, learning the virtues of housing above water.