Complete credited 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 | |
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Napoleon Pukui | ... | The King |
Agostino Borgato | ... | Medicine Man | |
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Sofia Ortega | ... | Mahumahu |
A young man falls overboard and is saved by a beautiful Polynesian girl. They fall in love, but their idyll is smashed when the local volcano begins to erupt. The man discovers that the local custom is to sacrifice a young woman to the volcanic gods. They try to escape but realize that "east is east and west is west, and never the twain shall meet." Written by Ed Lorusso
While the plot of this film may seem trite to us today, it was fresh and original in 1932 when it was made. This may well have been the first "throw the girl into the volcano" movie. Considering the technical limitations of film-making in 1932, the photography and special effects are quite good: the whirlpool, the erupting volcano and the river of lava.
Contradicting other postings to this website, I did not see a "rape" scene. What I saw was the male lead chase the female lead after she had been teasing him, then he wrestled her and pinned her down to introduce her to Western-style kissing. A rapist doesn't kiss his victim, and a rape victim would not want her attacker to continue kissing her.
The action of the plot moves quickly and is never bogged down by the dialog. This is an entertaining film, which you could view as you would any antique: it's charming for the era in which it was created.