Tikis in films

The movie North has quite a few, although there aren't that many clear shots of them. It's when North, played by Elijah Wood, goes to Hawaii to interview Governor and Mrs. Ho as potential parents.

Here's one from Forgetting Sarah Marshall

"The Frightened City" (1961), starring Sean Connery and Herbert Lom. Much of the action takes place in a gangster-run Hawaiian restaurant/bar in London called the Taboo Club. Lots of Tikis, pale-skinned anglo Hula girls, and tropical drinks with long straws are on display.

"The Blue Gardenia" a 1953 Film Noir starring Anne Baxter, Raymond Burr, George Reeves, and Richard Conte. In this scene, Burr invites Ms. Baxter to a Chinese restaurant called, The Blue Gardenia, then proceeds to ply her with several "Polynesian Pearl Divers" so he can seduce her later at his swingin' bachelor pad. Nat King Cole sings "Blue Gardenia". Nice ice cone on those Pearl Divers.

Weblog: Eye of the Goof

[ Edited by: MrBaliHai 2008-07-14 16:13 ]

Nice finds! Doesn't "The Apartment" use its Polynesian club location for a similar seduction/bachelor pad set up? I think there is an important facet of the appeal of these clubs in more sexually restrained times that has gotten little notice so far: The ladies liked those colorful cocktails, the cocktails were strong and got them hammered, and -Voila- bachelor pad swinging ensued!

Fact is (according to local sources) that the Spanish Tiki bars supposedly have survived for so long because they have been favored by generations of business men and youngsters alike for their dark nooks and booths, which allowed drunken groping sessions, discreetly overlooked by the wait staff.

On 2008-07-14 16:41, bigbrotiki wrote:
Nice finds! Doesn't "The Apartment" use its Polynesian club location for a similar seduction/bachelor pad set up? I think there is an important facet of the appeal of these clubs in more sexually restrained times that has gotten little notice so far: The ladies liked those colorful cocktails, the cocktails were strong and got them hammered, and -Voila- bachelor pad swinging ensued!

Apparently, tropical cocktails were the "roofies" of the '50s and '60s.

Fact is (according to local sources) that the Spanish Tiki bars supposedly have survived for so long because they have been favored by generations of business men and youngsters alike for their dark nooks and booths, which allowed drunken groping sessions, discreetly overlooked by the wait staff.

That's what we used the Bahooka for when I was in high-school back in the '70s...:D

Yesterday I saw the Werner Herzog Antarctica documentary 'Encounters at the End of the World'

Tikis in Antarctica?

Late in the film, there is a scene where of the workers is being interviewed. There is a tiki on the wall behind him. Unfortunately, it is one of those hideous colored Party Store tikis. Ugh, what an atrocity. There is a frozen sturgeon later in the film, and that frozen fish had way more soul and mystery and looked way more tiki - even in its permanently frozen state, than that party store tiki.

Another scene showed a big weather balloon and scientific meteorological package it was carrying (to measure sub-atomic particles in the upper atmosphere) The scientific package had hula girls and Hawaiian language (non-party store) printed on its side - due to the head scientist being from the University of Hawaii. (Hawaii to Antarctica ... quite the professional journey)

Lots of ice down in Antarctica, but not much tiki

Robert Altman's absolutely awful attempt at '80s teen comedy, "O.C. & Stiggs", features Martin Mull drinking "Brown liquor from Bora Bora" out of Trader Vic's skull mugs. Mull's swimming pool is decorated with large tikis, but I had a hard time getting decent screencaps of them due to the darkness of the scene.

Weblog: Eye of the Goof

[ Edited by: MrBaliHai 2008-07-14 18:15 ]

On 2008-07-14 17:05, ikitnrev wrote:
Yesterday I saw the Werner Herzog Antarctica documentary 'Encounters at the End of the World'

Tikis in Antarctica?

Late in the film, there is a scene where of the workers is being interviewed. There is a tiki on the wall behind him. Unfortunately, it is one of those hideous colored Party Store tikis. Ugh, what an atrocity. There is a frozen sturgeon later in the film, and that frozen fish had way more soul and mystery and looked way more tiki - even in its permanently frozen state, than that party store tiki.

Another scene showed a big weather balloon and scientific meteorological package it was carrying (to measure sub-atomic particles in the upper atmosphere) The scientific package had hula girls and Hawaiian language (non-party store) printed on its side - due to the head scientist being from the University of Hawaii. (Hawaii to Antarctica ... quite the professional journey)

Lots of ice down in Antarctica, but not much tiki

There is tiki in Antarctica my brother and some other board scientists working near the pole built this life size moai head out of ice a few years ago.

The Elvis classic, Blue Hawaii. Not a tiki in sight, but there were a couple of swingin' scenes featuring tropical cocktails and alohawear.

Keep 'em coming. The Frightened City looks very cool. I may have to own that one.

The Frightened City is an excellent crime drama in every respect. The fact that it also contains tikis is just the float of 151 on top of the cinematic cocktail.

The Harder they fall

"Where Danger Lives" (1950) with Robert Mitchum and Faith Domergue

Mitchum shares coconut drinks with a murderous dame at "Pogo Pete's". When she ditches him unexpectedly, Mitchum sucks 'em all up and asks for more, but the waiter tells him only two to a customer and says, "That drink makes a guy talk back to his mother-in-law!"

On 2008-07-14 16:41, bigbrotiki wrote:
Nice finds! Doesn't "The Apartment" use its Polynesian club location for a similar seduction/bachelor pad set up? I think there is an important facet of the appeal of these clubs in more sexually restrained times that has gotten little notice so far: The ladies liked those colorful cocktails, the cocktails were strong and got them hammered, and -Voila- bachelor pad swinging ensued!

Fact is (according to local sources) that the Spanish Tiki bars supposedly have survived for so long because they have been favored by generations of business men and youngsters alike for their dark nooks and booths, which allowed drunken groping sessions, discreetly overlooked by the wait staff.

JAJAJA!

The ultimate Spanish Tiki truth! Nice socio-anthropological research bigbrotiki! But Spanish tiki bars survived for many other reasons, some are still a mystery to me.

There's tikis in some spanish movies too... I'll post something someday.

Aloha!

Z

I was flipping through Turner Classic Movies and caught the musical "My Dream is Yours" (1949)starring Doris Day. Doris plays an aspiring signer who at one point ends up singing as part of a Hawaiian floor show. It's basically just the one scene and if you want a quick glimpse, check out the trailer at TCM.com: http://www.tcm.com/video/videoPlayer/?cid=32101&titleId=922 Not the most impressive scene, but I love these little glimpses in the old films you wouldn't expect.

Okay, this next one may be the "Party Central" of Tiki films...:wink:

"Brides of Blood", a terrible atomic-monster flick from the Philipines, was made in 1968. It's clear that the director was attempting to portray a South Seas paradise under attack by cannibalistic mutant plants and a guy in a pathetically bad rubber monster mask. Instead, what we get are some truly terrible examples of pseudo-Tiki carvings, like the island's chief idol (which looks more like a retarded jack-in-the-box than a Polynesian god), along with a couple of strippers from Manila decked out in grass skirts and sarongs. That fine, American actress, Beverly Hills, also appears as a scientist's slutty wife who gets conveniently disrobed by the monster just as I was starting to fall asleep.

Enjoy!

The monster with one red eye. Must be related to the Goof!

I saw one recently. It was called Paradise Found, it is a biopic about the life of painter Paul Gauguin. Half the film takes place in Paris where he quits a lucrative job as a stock broker and becomes a painter. The other half is in French Polynesia where he paints the people and places that surround him. He has conflicts with his wife over quitting his job and his painting, he has conflicts with the local priest in Tahiti about the destruction of tikis (false idols) on the island.

I would not buy a copy of it, but it is worth a rental if you like movies about paradise. From what I know about him it is pretty close to the facts too.

[ Edited by: captnkirk 2008-09-12 03:18 ]

"Midway" (1976): Capt. Matthew Garth (Charleton Heston) and his son, Ensign Thomas Garth (Edward Albert) have a drink in a Hawaiian tiki bar. You can see a couple of nice, carved tiki poles in the background, along with some shell and fishing-float lamps. Since this is set during WWII, 6 months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, I'd be interested to know whether or not there actually were tiki bars on Honolulu in 1942, or if this is just an anachronism. I suspect the latter.

In Season 1 of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, an episode called "Turn Back The Clock" features a 3 second clip of natives drumming and in the background you can see the Oceanic Art masks hanging from the cave wall. Its just after 32 min into the show.

I discovered another film from 1956 that features the Pago Pago in Tucson, Arizona. (Previously Cheeky Half posted some shots from A KISS BEFORE DYING, which also features it:)
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=302&forum=1&vpost=310594&hilite=kiss%20before%20dying

The following movie is CRIME AGAINST JOE, a low budget crime drama from Howard W. Koch Productions, starring John Bromfield (who usually played good looking cads in his movies). The female lead is played by Julie London, but she doesn't sing nor does she appear in the two Pago Pago scenes (the actress playing the club singer in these shots is named Alika Louis).

I figured out the locale because Bromfield says he's going to the "Pango Pango" (n's pronounced), which I assumed to really be Pago Pago (though I didn't dream they'd use the real business name in the film--they did). Then there is a street sign named N. Oracle Rd., which I looked up on Google maps and--voila--it was in Tucson. The brilliance of the people on this forum told me the rest:
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=16506&forum=2&6
(Elsewhere in the film are some scenes in downtown Tucson, and mentions of the University of Arizona, etc.)

I did some screen captures, including a couple of panoramas I put together from pan shots (I can post the individual frames if these came out too small to see). There are two scenes at the Pago Pago, one longer one earlier in the film and a later brief one that has the last tracking shot which gives you a good shot of the interior. Based on the interiors here (which look real), I'm thinking that A KISS BEFORE DYING was filmed at the real exterior, but used sound stage sets for the interior (it vibes too big, and it was a bigger budget movie that could afford to recreate interiors for maximum camera movement).

Here's the panorama of the front when Bromfield first arrives:

Some inside shots (note cool ceiling):

Panorama of the inside later in the film:

The front again:

Here's the sign (part of it) and a flavor of the industrial stretch where it was located:

Note the "N. Oracle Rd." street sign (address was 2201 N. Oracle Rd.):

Dig the covered wagon in front for true western tiki ambiance!

I have a few more shots which I can post, but didn't want to hog bandwidth right off.

Brent W.

Nice work!

Cool Moai from "Creature With the Atom Brain", a psychotronic classic about killer Nazi zombies.

Great images from the Pago Pago! Here is a matchbook (with that fabulous embossed breasts feature!):

I had missed that earlier post with the color pics, it's fun to compare the film still of the exterior with the rendering!:

The column and the doors line up exactly in both images!

This place was clearly Pre-Tiki in style and name, as I pointed out here:
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=12807&forum=2&vpost=276319

It would be interesting to compile a list of how many Pago Pagos existed in America.

One of a series of establishing shots of various 1950s household items in the opening scene of "Blood Diner". I only picked up the Lyman album under the table when I saw the screencap:

Surprised no one's posted any caps from this yet:

Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki (1950)

Anyone catch the recent episode of "Psych" called "Tuesday the 17th"? It takes place at "Camp Tikihama" and the main building was called the "Menehune Lodge."
There's been tiki references before on the show - anyone know if the creators are TC'ers?

While channel surfing through the Shotime channels, I found a scene where Vanessa Williams is dancing in front of a bunch of guys in fez's* in a place with heavy tiki decor. Turns out to be an updated version (1995) of Bye Bye Birdie

All Movie Guide: Bye Bye Birdie (1995)

Vanessa Williams in Bye Bye Birdie

• What is the proper plural version of fez anyway?

• What is the proper plural version of fez anyway?

fiz?

Necessary Roughness with Scott Bakula.

fezzes?

On 2007-10-01 10:36, aku76 wrote:
I don't know if it's been mentioned, but a good 50s film called 'Pearl of the South Pacific' starring Virginia Mayo has several large tikis--they are even part of the plot because the tribal leader prays to them several times. Check it out.

I was watching a crappy 1959 German horror film called "Die Nackte und der Satan" (AKA: The Head) last night, and was stunned to come across a scene set in what appears to be a very Tiki Modernesque bar!

The scene opens in a theater with a large mask hanging above the stage where some sort of magic show is taking place:

After that, the action moves to a bar with bamboo-covered walls hung with more masks:



I had a hard time getting a good screencap of the bar, but it fit it with the rest of the decor in these shots. No tropical cocktails were being served, just martinis...:P

As an aside "Die Nackte und der Satan" translates on Babelfish as "The naked one and the Satan", I think "The Head" is a pretty lame alternative title, surely "Satan's Nudists" would have been more catchy.

Dont have an image of it but in the movie Mall Cop there is a tiki in the scene where they are in the Rainforest Cafe! This topic is like the Mr. Skin of tikis!

On 2009-03-02 13:37, atomictonytiki wrote:
As an aside "Die Nackte und der Satan" translates on Babelfish as "The naked one and the Satan", I think "The Head" is a pretty lame alternative title, surely "Satan's Nudists" would have been more catchy.

Or "Satan Gets Some Head"...:wink:

El coleccionista de cadaveres/The corpse collector (1970)
The mask hides the entrance to Boris Karloff´s Torremolinos castle dungeons, where he and Viveka Lindfors collect their corpses.

In "The Solid Gold Cadillac" (1956) there is a large traditional styled tiki in a prominent place on the credenza in the Chairman of the Board's office (which is a spectacular mid-century office with a well-stocked bar and a glass wall overlooking a tropical plant garden and patio!). Also, near the end of the movie there is a scene in another office where a stylized Moai statue resides on a shelf!

Somebody just posted the following screencap to the Name That Film pool on Flickr. I have no idea what it's from, but when I find out, I'll come back and update this post.

That is one cool looking :tiki:

On 2008-07-14 16:41, bigbrotiki wrote:
Nice finds! Doesn't "The Apartment" use its Polynesian club location for a similar seduction/bachelor pad set up?

Yes, there are two fairly long and substantial scenes in a Tiki bar in that one.

Saw "Milk" tonight, and there is a pretty huge Tiki in Milk's boyfriend's living room.
Uh, let the innuendo begin....

From a very recent episode of "Reaper", scenes shot in Vancouver's Waldorf Hotel's Polynesian Room:

Stairs leading to the dining floor (note tiny bar in rear):

Shot of the floor with famous wall-mural:

And front view of aquarium seen in first pic to the left:

I have not seen it yet, but I understand the talking Rapa Nui (Easter Island) Moai head will be in the Night at the Museum sequel that is in theaters now.

I wonder if the "tiny bar in the rear" hurts him or if he's enjoying it? LOL

On 2009-04-20 22:16, twitch wrote:
From a very recent episode of "Reaper", scenes shot in Vancouver's Waldorf Hotel's Polynesian Room:

Stairs leading to the dining floor (note tiny bar in rear):

Shot of the floor with famous wall-mural:

And front view of aquarium seen in first pic to the left:

My apologies if this has been mentioned before (I searched Tiki Central and the chosen words did not come up). Does anybody remember a Sid & Marty Krofft show from the late 1970s called 'Magic Mongo'? A fun and silly children's show (which I loved at the time, and nostalgically still love! I'm a Baby Buster and this is part of my history!) that took place primarily on a beach, and was the setting of the adventures of three innocent yet daft teenagers and a Genie (Magic Mongo) they found on the beach trapped in a bottle.

Anyway, there was a Polynesian/Tiki-styled hamburger/hotdog shack on the beach called 'Huli's Hut' (owned by an Asian fellow) that they worked at. The shack was a great little taste of Polynesian Tiki-bar aesthetics (and yes, there were Tiki statues, but no booze, of course; this was for the kids and teenagers, remember, and a TV show for such). I couldn't online find any decent images to link to this post, but I do have several episodes of the programme (for what it's worth).

You will be pleased to know that TV.com has many episodes of Magic Mongo available

Magic Mongo at TV.com

On 2009-04-20 22:16, twitch wrote:
From a very recent episode of "Reaper", scenes shot in Vancouver's Waldorf Hotel's Polynesian Room:

Stairs leading to the dining floor (note tiny bar in rear):

Hey Twitch, Thanks for posting this! I did not see this post until now but that Bar in the rear as actually the bar we made and had at the Vancouver store, Funhauser Decor, for a while!

We often had stock at Funhauser and they would rent it out for movies or different T.V. Shows. Guess this was one I forgot about! It sure is real cool to see the downstairs Polynesian Room looking busy and open!! Too bad it wasn't like that in reality! They even had the palm trees pulled out with the net lighting wrapped around them. Great stuff!! It sure is cool to see our stuff in a great old Tiki establishment like the Waldorf Hotel!!

Here's a close up of our bar just before delivery:

Here a shot of the bar, along with a matching wall shelf I did, on display at Funhauser Decor in Vancouver's China Town:

Mahalo, TabooDan

I was flipping through channels and saw tikis on a smut channel. It was an episode of "Co-Ed Confidential" called "Spring Break". It looked like somewhere in Ft. Lauderdale.

On It's The Gary Shandling Show, Gary goes to an amusement park with a haunted tiki hut in the background, not a bad reference for the late 80's when the tiki was an afterthought.

[ Edited by: naugatiki 2009-07-11 06:21 ]