"Manuana of Tahiti" filmed at Don the Beachcomber

Wow, I've never seen that movie before, and didn't find anything about it here (sorry if it's old news).
It's like a video clip to promote Tahitian Dances, but filmed at Don the Beachcomber in Waikiki. Amazing documentary of the place, tikis...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x56tmOzTBXw

Great video Virani!
Got to love the Kodachrome color.
Who here is gonna make a sound track for this?

I likiliki. This site has a a lot of great vintage celluloid. Good find.

Seeing this, one understands how EVERYBODY wanted to have a place like Don The Beachcomber's! And now we know where this "Tahitian" photo from Sabu's fern Tiki thread came from :) :

Aha! My book lied to me. For the chapter where they traveled to Tahiti, they used stock footage from "Manuana". I knew that tiki looked Hawaiian. Good catch, bigbro.

Another happy discovery from this film...

...notice the pole to the left of the fern-wood tiki above.

:down: and under her arm below:

:down: you can see it's lips at the upper left corner here:

That gives me the location of this 8x10 glossy photo that just arrived in the mail today:

All I knew was that it was a photo promoting Hawaii travel that was used in the Chicago Sun Times in 1954. Now I know it was taken at Don The Beachcomber's.

"CLICK!" -The sound of Tiki puzzle pieces fitting together :)

On 2010-03-05 23:37, Sabu The Coconut Boy wrote:

...notice the pole to the left of the fern-wood tiki above.

pole schmole
Notice those hips could clear a freeway.

The drummer looks like Martin Denny,you think? The dancer looks familiar too.

Manuana is Anna Gobreght. Donn brought her over from Tahiti in 1955 to head up the entertainment at the IMP and she was the first Tahitian dancer in Hawaii. He also brought Toti Terrorotua in 1956, who would go on to found the Mai-Kai show and entertain us at Hukilau year after year. Anna caught the eye of Marlon Brando and he spent a lot of time on the island with her.

This is the original Don the Beachcomber before the IMP because of the little hut, pond, and bridge and you can see Sven's Modernist Tiki in the background at 1:45.

Great to see the place in color!

Great info. Tim. I was trying to make out the Roman Numeral date at the beginning of the film but couldn't make it out. Based on the number of numerals, it had to be either 1951 or 1955. Based on your information, it must have been filmed in 1955. (anyone know how I can change my user name? This TikiSox is ancient. Greg)

This all makes perfect sense now...

[ Edited by TikiSOX on 2023-02-05 06:36:52 ]