Tikis in films - General Tiki

O Otto Grand Member (3 years) NorCal Joined: Mar 29, 2002 Posts: 1000	O Otto Posted posted on Fri, Sep 26, 2014 11:42 PM Way back in 2000 or so I was working on a zine and one of the columns was about Cinema and was written by then screenwriter-now famous mixologist Beachbum Berry. Here is his last column from 2003 CINEMAXOTICA II Our Second TV Tiki Hunt By Beachbum Berry The first time we chronicled our search for tikis on TV (TIKI NEWS #17), we thought we'd found most of what's out there. But a second channel-surfin' safari into late-night cable television yielded finds beyond our wildest grog-induced dreams. Here's what the remote dragged in (plus several sightings submitted by "Tiki News" readers): THE ANIMAL (2001): A remarkably unfunny Rob Schneider vehicle, but it does have a scene set in a cop bar that also happens to be a tiki bar. BACHELOR IN PARADISE (1961): Bob Hope moves to suburban Paradise Cove, where Lana Turner does the hula and all roads point to a tricked out Polynesian restaurant/bar. THE BIG MOUTH (1967): Jerry Lewis tiptoes through the tikis of a San Diego hotel's pool area. About as many laughs as... BIO-DOME (1996): Pauly Shore and his buuud-dy Stephen Baldwin throw a luau in the bio-dome, which they deck out with several tiki posts. BLUE HAWAII (1961): Elvis clashes with his family when he forsakes them for a grass shack on the beach. It's a good shack and a nice beach, but we would have stayed with his family -- who mix their own mai tais in a swingin' Oriental-themed moderne house. THE BREAKING POINT (1950): A re-make of To Have And Have Not, and this is the one to have since it has a scene in the legendary Christian's Hut of Newport Beach. John Garfield reprises the Bogart role. BREWSTER MCCLOUD (1970): Robert Altman followed "MASH" with this quasi-surrealistic curiosity in which Bud Cort dreams of flying across the Houston Astrodome on a pair of home-made mechanical wings. Notable for the theme-park riverboat cruise Bud takes with Shelly Duvall; the boat passes "Lububa," a large stone face with rolling eyes embedded in the river bank. If that's not enough for you, there's also Sally Kellerman splashing around nude in a freeway fountain, then leading a chase through the Astrodome parking lot in a red AMC Pacer. THE CAINE MUTINY (1954): Before the mutineer ships out, he fights with his girlfriend in a Hawaiian bar with stylized tiki faces on the wall. THE DAY THE SKY FELL IN (1966): In this episode of the TV series "The Time Tunnel," James Darren journeys back in time to the bombing of Pearl Harbor -- and is unfazed by the fact that in 1941 Honolulu, everyone's wearing 1960s fashions. A couple of tikis appear as residential set dressing. (Otto Von Stroheim hipped us to this one.) DEAD HEAT ON A MERRY-GO-ROUND (1966): An off-beat heist film starring James Coburn as an existential bank robber. The bank he robs just happens to be inside the Theme Building, Los Angeles Airport's famous space-age landmark. Many interesting shots of the building in its mid-'60s prime, but that's not what concerns us here. Midway through the caper, Coburn sends girlfriend Camilla Sparv to find them some digs in L.A. She settles on a Polynesian-themed San Fernando Valley apartment complex -- complete with tikis out front and torches around the pool, plus monkey pod furniture, beaded curtains, and Witco-style wall hangings inside. "It's kinda Waikiki Pop, isn't it?" observes a befuddled Coburn upon entering their little slice o' heaven. DIAMOND HEAD (1963): In addition to Yvette Mimieux doing the hula, this soaper features a big fat Ku tiki in the front yard of Charlton Heston's plantation estate. No doubt Ku was displeased by the fact that Heston drinks straight Bourbon in his presence instead of okolehao. A native Hawaiian played by James Darren (!) has a goofy tiki in his bedroom. DONOVAN'S REEF (1963): Aside from the not inconsiderable pleasures of watching Lee Marvin punch out John Wayne in a tropical island bar, there's the bar itself -- which features two tikis guarding the entrance, and another hiding behind the piano (a wise decision, as just about everything in the bar is destroyed except him). FAST CARS, TIKI BARS (2001): It had to happen -- Tiki-themed porn. In one scene, one of the girls even reads an issue of "Tiki News"! (Thanks to Logan Summers for this one.) FINDING NEMO (2003): The dentist's office aquarium in which little clownfish Nemo is dumped sports not one, but three nicely rendered 1960s-style tiki heads. So why does he want to escape? Fish. Go figure. THE FRIGHTENED CITY (1961): What could be frightening about a tiki supper club in sixties London? The "Taboo Club" features tiki-shaped cocktail menus on the tables, scorpion bowls with long straws, and a stuffy businessman customer actually dropping his monocle at the sight of the pudgy English dancing girls in grass skirts. Sean Connery plays a gangster who's hot for the one bit of crumpet on the dance floor who could use a few more pounds, not to mention acting lessons. GAPPA (1965): Also known as "Monster From A Prehistoric Planet," this blissful example of anthropological confusion follows a scientific expedition, led by one Professor Kurosaki, to a South Seas isle populated by Japanese extras with painted-on "Polynesian" brown skin. Here the Professor finds giant stone idols several stories high. "Just like the statues on Easter Island," he observes, even though they're clearly modelled on Mexico's Toltec effigies. The village of the Japanesians features several tikis just as clearly modelled on Canada's Pacific Northwest Indian totem poles. The statues stand sentinel in front of the sealed cave of Gappa -- an egg that becomes a very large and very angry dino-bird. The fun starts when mom and dad fly down from outer space to save him from destruction. GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI (1966): Watch for a pool party featuring several interesting tiki-faced, terra-cotta planters. A GIRL, A GUY AND A GOB (1941): George Brent as a swabby turned pro wrestler named Coffee Cup. What more could you ask? How about the "Bon Ton," a sailor bar with lots of palm fronds, wall masks, and rowdy goons fighting over brassy dames (one of whom is Lucille Ball). HARPER (1966): About halfway through this Paul Newman private-eye yarn set in L.A., we're treated to an exterior shot of the "Santa Barbara" apartment building -- and the Milan Guanco tikis fronting it. HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI (1965): The title sequence boasts spectacular acid-trip animation by "Gumby" creator Art Clokey, in which a gourd briefly morphs into an Easter Island moai. It's all downhill from there, but stick around for the opening scene -- featuring Buster Keaton as Bwana, witch-doctor of Goona Goona Island, drinking "Torpedo Juice." JAWS 3-D (1983): A tiki bar scene. Oh yeah, and some sharks. MAN FRIDAY (1975): A revisionist version of "Robinson Crusoe," with Peter O'Toole as the castaway and Richard Roundtree (of "Shaft" fame) as Friday. Friday's tribe, while clearly meant to be from an island off the coast of Africa, worships the same Sooty Tern icon as the ancient Bird Cult of Easter Island. It really is a small world after all... THE MINDBENDERS (1963): Before he gets his mind bent by sense-deprivation experiments, Dirk Bogarde lounges around his country cottage while his kids impersonate Thor Heyerdal and his crew in the front yard ... on a home-made replica of the Kon Tiki raft. MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1960): See it for Marlon Brando's unintentionally ridiculous English accent, Trevor Howard's intentionally ridiculous Tahitian dancing, and King Hiti-Hiti's tiki-festooned ceremonial canoe. NINA TAKES A LOVER (1994): And he has an eight-foot cement Easter Island head in his photo-studio loft. Who could blame Nina for loving a guy like that? O.C. AND STIGGS (1987): In his suburban backyard, which he calls "Tahiti," Martin Mull serves "Brown Liquor" in Trader Vic skull mugs; decor includes Trader Vic table lamps, palm-carved tikis, and lots of vintage '70s rattan. Personally, we wish Robert Altman were still making movies this jaw-droppingly bizarre instead of Merchant-Ivory xeroxes like "Gosford Park." OCEAN'S ELEVEN (1960): Sinatra and his Rat Pack put the bite on Las Vegas, while pondering such weighty issues as: "Remember those rum drinks we used to have at the Traders?" Also watch for a tiki mask displayed on a stand. (Trader Woody filed this dispatch from the UK.) ONCE WERE WARRIORS (1994): Late in the film, a Maori tiki puts in an appearance during a funeral -- which is one of the more upbeat scenes in this neo-realist look at poor, disenfranchised Maoris in contemporary New Zealand. PAGAN ISLAND (1960): A seaman, stranded on a tropical isle inhabited by women who have never seen a man, angers Queen Kealoha by teaching nubile young Nani Maka how to kiss. Turns out Nani's been promised to the Sea God, a jaw-droppingly strange stone statue with a head shaped like two 1950s Cadillac tailfins joined at the nose, and teeth the size of elephant tusks. Miami-based Sculptor Lewis Van Dercar created the Sea God; whatever he was smoking at the time, I want some. PEARL OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC (1955): A melodrama set on a remote island apparently settled by Marquesans, Hawaiians, and New Guinea natives -- all at the same time. "Tangaloha" is a big stone Marquesan-style tiki fronting a "Hidden Temple" that happens to be in plain sight of everyone. Inside the temple stands the "Goddess Of Love," a big-busted transexual Ku figure, along with Hawaiian-style war god "Laka." Rounding things out are several New Guinea carvings in the village. Dig the giant octopus that guards the Black Pearl Lagoon. PIRANHA (1978): Two tiki posts inside the Aquarena Springs Submarine Theatre of Texas. Oh yeah, and some piranhas. PSYCHO BEACH PARTY (2000): Surfer boy Starcat (Nicholas Brendan of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," who should slay his agent for this one) uses his tiki pendant to hypnotize Chiclet (Lauren Ambrose of "Six Feet Under" -- insert your own agent remark here). Alpha surfer boy The Great Kanaka carves a tiki called "The God Of Sex" for a luau, where his tiki is upstaged by some golden head-carvings with smoking topknots. Quite a few good Hawaiian shirts too. PUMPKIN (2002): Christina Ricci, way too pallid to be wearing a grass skirt and jungle-print bikini top, rock-a-hula dances to the Surfaris' "Wipe Out" at a luau-themed sorority rush party. RETURN TO THE BLUE LAGOON (1991): The drama comes to a heart-stopping climax when the ground in front of a large tiki god is swept clean by a native with a broom. (Otto spotted this one too.) SAVAGE MESSIAH (1972): Ken Russell's portrait of sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, who at least got to cavort atop an Easter Island moai before dying in the trenches of WWI. SCREAM 3 (2000): Murder in a basement full of movie-prop zombies, corpses, coffins, a guillotine ... and an Oceanic Arts Ku tiki. THE SIMPSONS (1989- ): TV's long-running cartoon sitcom boasts a recurring character, Sideshow Bob, who is the spitting image of one of those upside-down palm-trunk tikis. Note his root-like hair and tell us he wasn't modelled on one. Just try. We dare you. TAPEHEADS (1988): If you're into '80s nostalgia, you obviously didn't live through them -- and you might be interested in this LA music-biz satire, which features a scene in Kelbo's. TERMINATOR (1984): The motel in which future machine-battlin' hero John Connor is conceived? It's a tiki motel. Take that, terminators. THERE GOES MY BABY (1994): The American Graffiti template transplanted to the summer of 1965, centering around an island-themed burger joint called Pop's Paradise. Outside there's a WWII bomber on the roof. Inside there's surfer Ricky Shroeder bummed about losing his woody and going to Viet Nam (just about in that order). TIARA TAHITI (1962): Herbert Lom plays a Chinese merchant who's hot for James Mason's mistress, which is odd since Lom plays the merchant gayer than Liberace. Also odd: Many flashes of the mistress's bare breasts, unheard of in a British movie in 1962. We can only surmise that said breasts were acceptable because they belonged, "National Geographic"-style, to a "native"; but this native is played by decidedly non-Tahitian Rosenda Monteros (sort of a Latin Sandra Bullock) in quite a bit of brown body make-up. Many tiki posts on the Royal Tahitienne Hotel set, and Lom sells Tahitian cannibal carvings in his shop (who get their closeup after two American tourists buy them). A TIKI SCARE IS NO FAIR (1970): An episode of the "Scooby Doo, Where Are You?" cartoon series, featuring a witch doctor wearing a tiki mask. (N.B.: When he takes off the mask, he's a dead ringer for Ned Flanders of "The Simpsons.") WEIRD WOMAN (1944): In this Lon Chaney, Jr., mystery, hula girls and tikis collide with voodoo ritual. Man, I hate when that happens. (Thanks to Will The Thrill for this one). WHALE RIDER (2002): Like "Once Were Warriors," a socially conscious look at contemporary Maori angst -- but this one has a lot more tikis in it. WHERE DANGER LIVES (1950): Mia Farrow's dad John directed Robert Mitchum in this noirish trifle, notable for the sight of manly Mitchum drinking cocktails out of coconut shells in a tropical bar. THE WOMAN CHASER (1999): A film noir parody about a used-car salesman (Patrick Warburton of "Seinfeld" and "The Tick") turned film director. Watch for Warburton sulking over his botched epic with a tropical drink in Bahooka's restaurant. WORLD'S BIGGEST GANG BANG II (2001): More tiki porn! Jasmine St. Claire does 300 guys to break the world gang-bang record, on what she refers to as a "Polynesian-themed tiki set." (As opposed to the Mexican-themed tiki set of "Gappa"?) St. Claire also informs us that after 90 guys, "to be honest with you, it wasn't all that pleasurable at all." Unlike spotting the Oceanic Arts Ku tiki posts and red plastic Hawaiian war gods skirting the action. -- Beachbum Berry images from Return to Blue Lagoon

Way back in 2000 or so I was working on a zine and one of the columns was about Cinema and was written by then screenwriter-now famous mixologist Beachbum Berry. Here is his last column from 2003
CINEMAXOTICA II
Our Second TV Tiki Hunt

By Beachbum Berry

The first time we chronicled our search for tikis on TV (TIKI NEWS #17), we thought we'd found most of what's out there. But a second channel-surfin' safari into late-night cable television yielded finds beyond our wildest grog-induced dreams. Here's what the remote dragged in (plus several sightings submitted by "Tiki News" readers):

THE ANIMAL (2001): A remarkably unfunny Rob Schneider vehicle, but it does have a scene set in a cop bar that also happens to be a tiki bar.

BACHELOR IN PARADISE (1961): Bob Hope moves to suburban Paradise Cove, where Lana Turner does the hula and all roads point to a tricked out Polynesian restaurant/bar.

THE BIG MOUTH (1967): Jerry Lewis tiptoes through the tikis of a San Diego hotel's pool area. About as many laughs as...

BIO-DOME (1996): Pauly Shore and his buuud-dy Stephen Baldwin throw a luau in the bio-dome, which they deck out with several tiki posts.

BLUE HAWAII (1961): Elvis clashes with his family when he forsakes them for a grass shack on the beach. It's a good shack and a nice beach, but we would have stayed with his family -- who mix their own mai tais in a swingin' Oriental-themed moderne house.

THE BREAKING POINT (1950): A re-make of To Have And Have Not, and this is the one to have since it has a scene in the legendary Christian's Hut of Newport Beach. John Garfield reprises the Bogart role.

BREWSTER MCCLOUD (1970): Robert Altman followed "MASH" with this quasi-surrealistic curiosity in which Bud Cort dreams of flying across the Houston Astrodome on a pair of home-made mechanical wings. Notable for the theme-park riverboat cruise Bud takes with Shelly Duvall; the boat passes "Lububa," a large stone face with rolling eyes embedded in the river bank. If that's not enough for you, there's also Sally Kellerman splashing around nude in a freeway fountain, then leading a chase through the Astrodome parking lot in a red AMC Pacer.

THE CAINE MUTINY (1954): Before the mutineer ships out, he fights with his girlfriend in a Hawaiian bar with stylized tiki faces on the wall.

THE DAY THE SKY FELL IN (1966): In this episode of the TV series "The Time Tunnel," James Darren journeys back in time to the bombing of Pearl Harbor -- and is unfazed by the fact that in 1941 Honolulu, everyone's wearing 1960s fashions. A couple of tikis appear as residential set dressing. (Otto Von Stroheim hipped us to this one.)

DEAD HEAT ON A MERRY-GO-ROUND (1966): An off-beat heist film starring James Coburn as an existential bank robber. The bank he robs just happens to be inside the Theme Building, Los Angeles Airport's famous space-age landmark. Many interesting shots of the building in its mid-'60s prime, but that's not what concerns us here. Midway through the caper, Coburn sends girlfriend Camilla Sparv to find them some digs in L.A. She settles on a Polynesian-themed San Fernando Valley apartment complex -- complete with tikis out front and torches around the pool, plus monkey pod furniture, beaded curtains, and Witco-style wall hangings inside. "It's kinda Waikiki Pop, isn't it?" observes a befuddled Coburn upon entering their little slice o' heaven.

DIAMOND HEAD (1963): In addition to Yvette Mimieux doing the hula, this soaper features a big fat Ku tiki in the front yard of Charlton Heston's plantation estate. No doubt Ku was displeased by the fact that Heston drinks straight Bourbon in his presence instead of okolehao. A native Hawaiian played by James Darren (!) has a goofy tiki in his bedroom.

DONOVAN'S REEF (1963): Aside from the not inconsiderable pleasures of watching Lee Marvin punch out John Wayne in a tropical island bar, there's the bar itself -- which features two tikis guarding the entrance, and another hiding behind the piano (a wise decision, as just about everything in the bar is destroyed except him).

FAST CARS, TIKI BARS (2001): It had to happen -- Tiki-themed porn. In one scene, one of the girls even reads an issue of "Tiki News"! (Thanks to Logan Summers for this one.)

FINDING NEMO (2003): The dentist's office aquarium in which little clownfish Nemo is dumped sports not one, but three nicely rendered 1960s-style tiki heads. So why does he want to escape? Fish. Go figure.

THE FRIGHTENED CITY (1961): What could be frightening about a tiki supper club in sixties London? The "Taboo Club" features tiki-shaped cocktail menus on the tables, scorpion bowls with long straws, and a stuffy businessman customer actually dropping his monocle at the sight of the pudgy English dancing girls in grass skirts. Sean Connery plays a gangster who's hot for the one bit of crumpet on the dance floor who could use a few more pounds, not to mention acting lessons.

GAPPA (1965): Also known as "Monster From A Prehistoric Planet," this blissful example of anthropological confusion follows a scientific expedition, led by one Professor Kurosaki, to a South Seas isle populated by Japanese extras with painted-on "Polynesian" brown skin. Here the Professor finds giant stone idols several stories high. "Just like the statues on Easter Island," he observes, even though they're clearly modelled on Mexico's Toltec effigies. The village of the Japanesians features several tikis just as clearly modelled on Canada's Pacific Northwest Indian totem poles. The statues stand sentinel in front of the sealed cave of Gappa -- an egg that becomes a very large and very angry dino-bird. The fun starts when mom and dad fly down from outer space to save him from destruction.

GHOST IN THE INVISIBLE BIKINI (1966): Watch for a pool party featuring several interesting tiki-faced, terra-cotta planters.

A GIRL, A GUY AND A GOB (1941): George Brent as a swabby turned pro wrestler named Coffee Cup. What more could you ask? How about the "Bon Ton," a sailor bar with lots of palm fronds, wall masks, and rowdy goons fighting over brassy dames (one of whom is Lucille Ball).

HARPER (1966): About halfway through this Paul Newman private-eye yarn set in L.A., we're treated to an exterior shot of the "Santa Barbara" apartment building -- and the Milan Guanco tikis fronting it.

HOW TO STUFF A WILD BIKINI (1965): The title sequence boasts spectacular acid-trip animation by "Gumby" creator Art Clokey, in which a gourd briefly morphs into an Easter Island moai. It's all downhill from there, but stick around for the opening scene -- featuring Buster Keaton as Bwana, witch-doctor of Goona Goona Island, drinking "Torpedo Juice."

JAWS 3-D (1983): A tiki bar scene. Oh yeah, and some sharks.

MAN FRIDAY (1975): A revisionist version of "Robinson Crusoe," with Peter O'Toole as the castaway and Richard Roundtree (of "Shaft" fame) as Friday. Friday's tribe, while clearly meant to be from an island off the coast of Africa, worships the same Sooty Tern icon as the ancient Bird Cult of Easter Island. It really is a small world after all...

THE MINDBENDERS (1963): Before he gets his mind bent by sense-deprivation experiments, Dirk Bogarde lounges around his country cottage while his kids impersonate Thor Heyerdal and his crew in the front yard ... on a home-made replica of the Kon Tiki raft.

MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (1960): See it for Marlon Brando's unintentionally ridiculous English accent, Trevor Howard's intentionally ridiculous Tahitian dancing, and King Hiti-Hiti's tiki-festooned ceremonial canoe.

NINA TAKES A LOVER (1994): And he has an eight-foot cement Easter Island head in his photo-studio loft. Who could blame Nina for loving a guy like that?

O.C. AND STIGGS (1987): In his suburban backyard, which he calls "Tahiti," Martin Mull serves "Brown Liquor" in Trader Vic skull mugs; decor includes Trader Vic table lamps, palm-carved tikis, and lots of vintage '70s rattan. Personally, we wish Robert Altman were still making movies this jaw-droppingly bizarre instead of Merchant-Ivory xeroxes like "Gosford Park."

OCEAN'S ELEVEN (1960): Sinatra and his Rat Pack put the bite on Las Vegas, while pondering such weighty issues as: "Remember those rum drinks we used to have at the Traders?" Also watch for a tiki mask displayed on a stand. (Trader Woody filed this dispatch from the UK.)

ONCE WERE WARRIORS (1994): Late in the film, a Maori tiki puts in an appearance during a funeral -- which is one of the more upbeat scenes in this neo-realist look at poor, disenfranchised Maoris in contemporary New Zealand.

PAGAN ISLAND (1960): A seaman, stranded on a tropical isle inhabited by women who have never seen a man, angers Queen Kealoha by teaching nubile young Nani Maka how to kiss. Turns out Nani's been promised to the Sea God, a jaw-droppingly strange stone statue with a head shaped like two 1950s Cadillac tailfins joined at the nose, and teeth the size of elephant tusks. Miami-based Sculptor Lewis Van Dercar created the Sea God; whatever he was smoking at the time, I want some.

PEARL OF THE SOUTH PACIFIC (1955): A melodrama set on a remote island apparently settled by Marquesans, Hawaiians, and New Guinea natives -- all at the same time. "Tangaloha" is a big stone Marquesan-style tiki fronting a "Hidden Temple" that happens to be in plain sight of everyone. Inside the temple stands the "Goddess Of Love," a big-busted transexual Ku figure, along with Hawaiian-style war god "Laka." Rounding things out are several New Guinea carvings in the village. Dig the giant octopus that guards the Black Pearl Lagoon.

PIRANHA (1978): Two tiki posts inside the Aquarena Springs Submarine Theatre of Texas. Oh yeah, and some piranhas.

PSYCHO BEACH PARTY (2000): Surfer boy Starcat (Nicholas Brendan of "Buffy The Vampire Slayer," who should slay his agent for this one) uses his tiki pendant to hypnotize Chiclet (Lauren Ambrose of "Six Feet Under" -- insert your own agent remark here). Alpha surfer boy The Great Kanaka carves a tiki called "The God Of Sex" for a luau, where his tiki is upstaged by some golden head-carvings with smoking topknots. Quite a few good Hawaiian shirts too.

PUMPKIN (2002): Christina Ricci, way too pallid to be wearing a grass skirt and jungle-print bikini top, rock-a-hula dances to the Surfaris' "Wipe Out" at a luau-themed sorority rush party.

RETURN TO THE BLUE LAGOON (1991): The drama comes to a heart-stopping climax when the ground in front of a large tiki god is swept clean by a native with a broom. (Otto spotted this one too.)

SAVAGE MESSIAH (1972): Ken Russell's portrait of sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, who at least got to cavort atop an Easter Island moai before dying in the trenches of WWI.

SCREAM 3 (2000): Murder in a basement full of movie-prop zombies, corpses, coffins, a guillotine ... and an Oceanic Arts Ku tiki.

THE SIMPSONS (1989- ): TV's long-running cartoon sitcom boasts a recurring character, Sideshow Bob, who is the spitting image of one of those upside-down palm-trunk tikis. Note his root-like hair and tell us he wasn't modelled on one. Just try. We dare you.

TAPEHEADS (1988): If you're into '80s nostalgia, you obviously didn't live through them -- and you might be interested in this LA music-biz satire, which features a scene in Kelbo's.

TERMINATOR (1984): The motel in which future machine-battlin' hero John Connor is conceived? It's a tiki motel. Take that, terminators.

THERE GOES MY BABY (1994): The American Graffiti template transplanted to the summer of 1965, centering around an island-themed burger joint called Pop's Paradise. Outside there's a WWII bomber on the roof. Inside there's surfer Ricky Shroeder bummed about losing his woody and going to Viet Nam (just about in that order).

TIARA TAHITI (1962): Herbert Lom plays a Chinese merchant who's hot for James Mason's mistress, which is odd since Lom plays the merchant gayer than Liberace. Also odd: Many flashes of the mistress's bare breasts, unheard of in a British movie in 1962. We can only surmise that said breasts were acceptable because they belonged, "National Geographic"-style, to a "native"; but this native is played by decidedly non-Tahitian Rosenda Monteros (sort of a Latin Sandra Bullock) in quite a bit of brown body make-up. Many tiki posts on the Royal Tahitienne Hotel set, and Lom sells Tahitian cannibal carvings in his shop (who get their closeup after two American tourists buy them).

A TIKI SCARE IS NO FAIR (1970): An episode of the "Scooby Doo, Where Are You?" cartoon series, featuring a witch doctor wearing a tiki mask. (N.B.: When he takes off the mask, he's a dead ringer for Ned Flanders of "The Simpsons.")

WEIRD WOMAN (1944): In this Lon Chaney, Jr., mystery, hula girls and tikis collide with voodoo ritual. Man, I hate when that happens. (Thanks to Will The Thrill for this one).

WHALE RIDER (2002): Like "Once Were Warriors," a socially conscious look at contemporary Maori angst -- but this one has a lot more tikis in it.

WHERE DANGER LIVES (1950): Mia Farrow's dad John directed Robert Mitchum in this noirish trifle, notable for the sight of manly Mitchum drinking cocktails out of coconut shells in a tropical bar.

THE WOMAN CHASER (1999): A film noir parody about a used-car salesman (Patrick Warburton of "Seinfeld" and "The Tick") turned film director. Watch for Warburton sulking over his botched epic with a tropical drink in Bahooka's restaurant.

WORLD'S BIGGEST GANG BANG II (2001): More tiki porn! Jasmine St. Claire does 300 guys to break the world gang-bang record, on what she refers to as a "Polynesian-themed tiki set." (As opposed to the Mexican-themed tiki set of "Gappa"?) St. Claire also informs us that after 90 guys, "to be honest with you, it wasn't all that pleasurable at all." Unlike spotting the Oceanic Arts Ku tiki posts and red plastic Hawaiian war gods skirting the action.
-- Beachbum Berry

images from Return to Blue Lagoon

Post #728503 by Otto on Fri, Sep 26, 2014 11:42 PM