Video night footage of The Luau restaurant, Miami Beach in 1964! - General Tiki

B bigbrotiki Tiki Socialite Tiki Island, above the Silverlake Joined: Mar 25, 2002 Posts: 11621	B bigbrotiki Posted posted on Wed, Jun 30, 2010 2:35 PM Sven, just curious, how much film footage is out there (that you're aware of) showing classic tiki? I'm sure there must be lots of home movie footage? The bars in old feature films are usually not easily identified. Very very very little! I mean of ACTUAL classic places, like the Miami Luau and the Castaways above. As can be witnessed in the "Tiki in the movies/TV" -threads, most scenes playing in and around Tiki bars in the 50s/60s were shot on sets, which more often than not were bad, half-assed and cheap attempts to create a Tiki Bar (there ARE exceptions, like the bar in "The Apartment"), the irony being that initially many of the decor concepts of Polynesian restaurants borrowed from movie sets. That's just how it was done in Hollywood at the time: Very few productions shot on real locations. Yes there MUST be lotsa amateur movies out there shot around Tiki places (not so much IN, because of the low light presenting a problem to the "slow" film at the time) -but to find them is, just like with amateur PHOTOS in Tiki bars, a lucky number game. PLUS, as can be seen in countless Restaurant photo folder snapshots, the emphasis of the photo or film was usually on the PEOPLE, not the decor (really, how can they!?). You are very lucky if you catch a glimpse of a mural, a mug or god forbid even a Tiki in any of these photos - a fact that paper collectors can corroborate, I am sure. Which leaves film footage like the above: Newsreels, commercials, travel films. But even here, Polynesian pop was woefully under-documented, just like in the rest of the media like newspapers and magazines, a fact that supports my claim that in its heyday, Tiki style came and went unrecognized and undescribed. [ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2010-06-30 14:37 ]

Sven, just curious, how much film footage is out there (that you're aware of) showing classic tiki? I'm sure there must be lots of home movie footage? The bars in old feature films are usually not easily identified.

Very very very little! I mean of ACTUAL classic places, like the Miami Luau and the Castaways above.
As can be witnessed in the "Tiki in the movies/TV" -threads, most scenes playing in and around Tiki bars in the 50s/60s were shot on sets, which more often than not were bad, half-assed and cheap attempts to create a Tiki Bar (there ARE exceptions, like the bar in "The Apartment"), the irony being that initially many of the decor concepts of Polynesian restaurants borrowed from movie sets. That's just how it was done in Hollywood at the time: Very few productions shot on real locations.

Yes there MUST be lotsa amateur movies out there shot around Tiki places (not so much IN, because of the low light presenting a problem to the "slow" film at the time) -but to find them is, just like with amateur PHOTOS in Tiki bars, a lucky number game. PLUS, as can be seen in countless Restaurant photo folder snapshots, the emphasis of the photo or film was usually on the PEOPLE, not the decor (really, how can they!?). You are very lucky if you catch a glimpse of a mural, a mug or god forbid even a Tiki in any of these photos - a fact that paper collectors can corroborate, I am sure.

Which leaves film footage like the above: Newsreels, commercials, travel films. But even here, Polynesian pop was woefully under-documented, just like in the rest of the media like newspapers and magazines, a fact that supports my claim that in its heyday, Tiki style came and went unrecognized and undescribed.

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2010-06-30 14:37 ]

Post #539960 by bigbrotiki on Wed, Jun 30, 2010 2:35 PM