Tikis in films

Don't know if anyone has mentioned it yet, but one of the local bars on Two and a Half Men has a great Tiki in the corner. It's the episode with the all girl volleyball team in the bar with Charlie and Allen.

On 2009-03-10 16:48, MrBaliHai wrote:
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.

This is from the Esther William's film, "Neptune's Daughter".

Hate to admit I'm watching "Into the Blue 2" but less then 10 minutes in there's a nice 3 foot tiki statue on the table outside their apartment. Suddenly I'm watching more intently :)

On 2009-02-28 23:24, Zeta wrote:

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.

Here are some more images from the promotional catalog for the movie. These would have been color lobby-cards and glossy photos you could order if you were a theater-owner or newspaperman in 1955.

...As on sale at oldies.com, etc. Trivia note: the boat used in this movie is TV's ADVENTURES IN PARADISE's schooner, the Leaky Tiki.

I started a thread in Beyond Tiki which touches on movies like this (you know, retro-tropical-tikiesque weirdo stuff) at oldies.com (not the only source of course):
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=23748&forum=6

PSYCHO BEACH PARTY has them in a few different scenes.

I tried to find this elsewhere, sorry for missing it if it appears somewhere else.

There is a scene from a 2009 Simpsons episode where Moe slights the fun time at Tiki bars compared to his establishment and the bartenders hang their heads in disappointment.

The Bounty (1984) has everything TC members could want: spectacular Tahitian setting, a great dance scene featuring beautiful half-nude native girls, grass huts, tribal tattoos and one Tiki! Despite the low Tiki count, The Bounty really is a seminal film for this genre; I surprised it wasn't mentioned on this thread earlier. It did pop up on a different thread where someone pointed out that the story contributed to the entire Polynesian Pop idea of escaping to a sensual tropical paradise. See it soon! Chuck (PS the Tiki appears briefly towards the end of their time on the island; the body of the deceased ship's doctor is discovered behind it.)

Watched 'Milk' Last night. Panning shot across living room, this sure looks one of Crazy Al's to me....

continue to pan....

Look what Gilligan found in one of those caves.

On 2006-12-26 16:27, Bowana wrote:
Tiki made an appearance in "Lords Of Dogtown" (2005). In the "Party in the Surf Ghetto" scene, the Z-Boys are passing around what looks like a Huka pipe and one of them puts it up to the mouth of a large vintage-style wooden Tiki to give it a hit. In the background, all the kids are chanting "Ti-ki! Ti-ki! Ti-ki!"

Would you believe that the Tiki smoking a hookah was deleted from certain versions of the film? I picked up a very inexpensive copy of this DVD somewhere, and they had cleaned up lots of little moments ("blow me" became "balony" for example, it was mostly Jay Adams' lines that were altered) This version was rated PG-13, it did not include commentary by Alva and Peralta and it had a label reading "original theatrical version" It should have had a label printed in large red letters saying "Warning: Butchered Version of Movie!"

The 1968 Disney film "Never a Dull Moment" has Dick van Dyke mistaken for a killer, involved in an art theft.

In one scene at the art museum, he hides in a room called "Gallery of Primitive Arts".

Some of the tikis look pretty familiar.

On 2009-09-02 21:05, tikipedia wrote:
The 1968 Disney film "Never a Dull Moment" has Dick van Dyke mistaken for a killer, involved in an art theft.
In one scene at the art museum, he hides in a room called "Gallery of Primitive Arts".
Some of the tikis look pretty familiar.

Yep, the one on the right looks like a version of that Marquesan style O.A. Tiki...

...but with an additional paint job!

And that is Henry Silva, one of my favorite Hollywood bad guys, inside member of the Rat Pack. He starred in Johnny Cool,
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0057200/
for which Sammy Davis crooned the title song, what a great soundtrack. I saw him 10 years ago in a store in Beverly Hills, he still looked the same!

ok, this may be reaching a bit...Godzilla Vs. megalon.
there appears to be a Moai like silver idol in the zeetopian lair/temple...
scary bad movie...
recommended drug and food accompaniments:

economy size nyquill
spray cheese
'nilla wafers

In the I Dream of Jeannie episode "You Can't Arrest Me... I Don't Have a Drivers License", Jeannie takes her master's car for a drive. For a very brief second, she drives past a tiki restaurant called the "Tahitian Room". This flashed by so quickly, I had to dig up the video on Hulu to verify (thank goodness for tiki instinct).

This has me wondering. Considering the budget of a TV show in the 1960s, it would seem it is unlikely the facade of this tiki restaurant was made for the program, considering how briefly it appeared on the screen. So was this facade used in some other TV program? And if so, which one?

Also, I dream of Jeannie took place in Cocoa Beach, Florida, although it was shot in California. There is no Tahitian Room in Cocoa Beach, but there was a Tahitian Lounge in Vero Beach, about 50 miles south of Cocoa Beach.

Another screenshot with the left-hand tiki more visible.

Slight side view of the A-frame. Note waitress in 'sarong' type dress.

The Tikipedia
www.tikipedia.com

[ Edited by: tikipedia 2009-10-12 19:09 ]

Great shot!! California had several small "Tahitian Room"s that didn't rate anything with a logo but a matchbook and maybe a cocktail napkin to remember them by. Often they didn't have postcards, menus or mugs.

Doctor Z and I discovered a Tahitian Room in Torrance CA before it was torn down that we still haven't even found a matchbook for. This one in the episode isn't it, but it could have been one of those minor tiki temples still uncharted.

[ Edited by: Sabu The Coconut Boy 2009-10-12 19:03 ]

Sorry, but that's a set, with 99% certainty. One sure hint: Both of those entrance Tikis are the lightweight, fiberglass molded type. The rest is just some bamboo, a sign, and fake palm trees.

yup - the facades looks oh so familiar to me too - maybe warner bros back lot or universal - simply dressed out for 'interest'.

I should have been more specific. If you keep watching video of the scene, you can tell it was filmed on a studio backlot.

Hence my question about whether the tiki bar in question was a facade made for some other program. Or it may have been an attempt to make a rather mundane backlot street set look more like what Cocoa Beach would look like to the Average Joe. Also note the palm trees, with the base of the trunks strategically blocked by parked cars. Could the cars conceal pots the trees are sitting in?

Pix of the full backlot set. The tiki bar is just visible at right.

I saw a film today called Eight Days A Week from 1997 starring Kerri Russell from The Waitress and Felicity. In the last ten minutes of the film they go to spy on a neighbor they think has killed his wife and are caught by the neighbor. He acts kinda like a psycho and grabs then and throws them through his living room door and once inside land into a pool. Inside is a tiki room. The guy laughs because he was able to scare them. He explains that he and his wife had their honeymoon in Tahiti and because she's sick she can't go so he brought Tahiti to her.

I came across a movie "Rapa Nui", produced by Kevin Costner while looking for something else. I put it on my que at Netflix, but they don't have it to send out yet, but you can watch it on instant play. Has anyone seen it? Is it worth the watch? Just watched "Once Were Warriors" again, if you haven't seen it, do so. It's about as emotionally gripping as a movie gets. (about a Maori family, in the "modern" world. Alcholism & wife abuse & family, and you won't forget it for long while. It stars among others, the guy who played boba fet, in the most recent star wars movie. Everyone in it is outstanding.

[ Edited by: drgoat456 2009-10-28 14:57 ]

[ Edited by: drgoat456 2009-10-29 07:36 ]

Rapa Nui just showed on cable TV...HBO,MAX,SHOW, I forget, but it was an OK movie, and I'd recommend watching it once to draw your own conclusions. Alot of tribes, carving and mounting Moai, competition for the Birdman, and tribal wars.

The only things that really stood out badly in my opinion, were the english accents used, and one white skinned woman actress posing as a tribal chick. I would have rather enjoyed the movie a bit more if the actors were subtitled, and had used a more traditional tongue/dialect instead.

On 2009-10-28 14:55, drgoat456 wrote:
I came across a movie "Rapa Nui", produced by Kevin Costner while looking for something else. I put it on my que at Netflix, but they don't have it to send out yet, but you can watch it on instant play. Has anyone seen it? Is it worth the watch? Just watched "Once Were Warriors" again, if you haven't seen it, do so. It's about as emotionally gripping as a movie gets. (about a Maori family, in the "modern" world. Alcholism & wife abuse & family, and you would forget it for long while. It stars among others, the guy who played boba fet, in the most recent star wars movie. Everyone in it is outstanding.

[ Edited by: drgoat456 2009-10-28 14:57 ]

I actually really liked Rapa Nui, despite the accents. And good call on Once Were Warriors. I've watched that one over and over.

umm yeah Bio-dome with pauly shore has a few tiki scenes - here are 2 there is another with the black and white tiki after their party where wax performs in the dome. These look like oceanic arts rentals to me...

This one is on youtube and it looks like a Witco

worth watching the show for the mod props in the background.

Big Joe on U-Tube! Yeaaah! I love watching the decor in 60s movies, too. I really should have become an art director, not a cinematographer. The few times I got to go into the prop houses in Hollywood, it blew my mind what treasures they have in there.

Actually, come to think of it, someone should shoot a stop-motion movie with all Witco Tikis and props as protagonists!

saw this while watching 3 stooges.

The Three Stooges - 149 - Pardon My Backfire (1953) (shemp, Moe, Larry,)

good times :)

A few nights ago, I was watching The Hound of the Baskervilles (1988 version, with Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes). Henry Baskerville, last known heir to the Baskerville estate, has traveled, accompanied by Dr. Watson, to his ancestral home, the centuries old, dark and foreboding Baskerville Hall. As they enter the front door, I spotted a wooden tiki (looks Hawaiian), inside, to the left of the door. Later, when Holmes arrives and enters the Hall for the first time, the tiki is again visible.

"The rum's the thing..."

[ Edited by: Limbo Lizard 2010-02-08 11:12 ]

TABU

F.W. Murnau

Spanish edition

Very cool, this is the only version of the TABU poster I have ever seen with a Tiki!

(love that palm frond font - why was that not used more often in Polynesian pop?)

I was just shown another poster design that had a very sexy wahine on it, probably from the 1948 re-release -but no Tiki!
Wonder were they got this one from.

Here's some TABU trivia:
"Murnau visited Tahiti in May 1929 and was joined by Flaherty a month later to scout for locations in the nearby island of Bora Bora. While scouting they found their leading lady Anna Chevalier (Reri) in a local cocktail bar."

Just watched a cheesy movie on Lifetime with Elizabeth Berkeley called Dark Beauty. In the opening scene there are multiple Tikis around the pool.

From the Elvis Presley film, "Girl Happy"

I saw Crazy Heart (with Jeff Bridges) last night, and in two scenes he is playing at a cowboy bar in Santa Fe... but the "cowboy" bar has a huge Japanese fish float (just over his head) multiple vintage swag tiki lamps (sans actual tikis) including one tapa PNG fish trap lamp, and even some tapa cloth pieces on the wall in a few shots near the end of the scene. Interesting set decorating choice for a dive honky-tonk in New Mexico, but it definitely got my attention. I know there are no ACTUAL tikis in the movie, but I thought it deserved a mention.

GREAT movie by the way.

A quick tikis-in-films fix free on the net: the movie CALIFORNIA DREAMING (1979) is on hulu for free viewing in full. It starts out very promisingly. In the first five minutes, beach and surfing scenes transition to the protagonist making his way to a beachside bar ("Duke's Vista Del Mar") with pretty large tiki at the entrance and a nice, beach/nautical interior, where he and the owner start talking about, and listening to, cool / West Coast - type jazz like two hip cats from the old school.

Sounds pretty cool, doesn't it? Unfortunately, that's where it peaks, at about the 5 minute mark. I watched it all, but can't recommend doing so unless you share my peculiar fondness for lowbrow pop culture from the Carter years. SoCal hands will also enjoy recognizing the locations, mostly beach and surfing related. Other than that, well, those first 5 minutes do have a tiki. Oh yeah, and there's one excellent quote: "Surfers are the Shriners of the beach."

http://www.hulu.com/watch/32168/california-dreaming

Something Weird Video On Demand currently has a nine-minute short featuring two PolyPop music videos from the early 60s. Both feature hula dancers; And both are as cheesy as they can get. But, if you give it at least a minute of your attention, you'll find yourself watching til the end. They're actually kinda fascinating.

For Cox Communications cable customers: On your remote, press the On Demand button. Once you get the menu, go to "Free Zone," then "Special Interests," then "Something Weird," and, finally, "Hula Honeys." For other cable systems that carry Something Weird On Demand, you'll have to poke around until you find it. I have no idea if there's any similarities between Cox and other cable providers.

I went to their web site to see if they offered these on DVD; I couldn't find them. However, instead, I found this burlesque collection from circa 1953, some of which was actually shot on Waikiki Beach.

**Burlesque In Hawaii- $10 plus s+h **
(click the link or pic to go to the product page.)

If you're not familiar with Something Weird video, dig around their web site for a bit. You'll find some lost classics, vintage commercials, drive-in and movie theater interstitials (aka "snipes"), lots of vintage porn, and obscure psychotronic drek. A great company for people with a taste for "Teh Odd."

although not a old film, The film haunted mansion with eddie murphy did have a nice tiki bar scene at the beginning of the film.

"Weird Woman" - 1944: starring Lon Chaney Jr. and Anne Gwynne. One of 6 low-budget films based on the old Inner Sanctum radio show. A supernatural thriller about a sociology professor (Chaney), who marries the white daughter of missionaries (Gwynne) who is raised on a South Pacific island by voodoo-practicing witch doctors when her parents are killed.

The Moon and Sixpence - 1942: a film loosely inspired by the life of Paul Gauguin, starring George Sanders as a detestable cad who abandons his wife and family to live on a South Pacific island and paint. For some reason, the film lurches between black and white, a pinkish monochrome, and full-color. There is also a brief cameo of Rondo Hatton as a leper.

Stuck on You! (1983)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088199/

A tiki/totem in Women of the Prehistoric Planet starring Irene Tsu - 1960's "native girl" including
Paradise, Hawaiian Style with Elvis and an ad campaign that needs further investigation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki_wiki_dollar

OK, definitely not a classic film (yet) but I just took my wife, Monica, to see "Date Night" with Tina Fey and Steve Carell. Near the beginning of the film there is a scene in a 'man cave' at Steve's friend's house and there is a shelf with a collection of tiki mugs. I'm not as skilled on IDing the mugs as you all are as I'm newer to the tiki love, and they may be generic mugs...

I was surprised to see them... I leaned over to Monica and said "check out the tiki mugs!"

anyway, that's my story... :)

peace,
Jason <

Rapa Nui (1994)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110944/

Pearl of the South Pacific (1955)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048474/

One of the best Poly-Pop films I've seen. It's got everything (except cocktails): tikis galore, gorgeous wahines, handsome kanes, a giant octopus battle, and Virgina Mayo playing the accordion.

Not sure The Brady Bunch qualifies as being a "film..."
but these are some dapper gents to be sure.

That is an old favorite among these parts!

Mr Bali Hai, great frame capture! I have only seen B&W stills and footage from this movie, do you think it was colorized after?
Definitely among the best and biggest Tikis on film. We have our Peabody Ku here again:

And I love how they used the already built temple set from some other (Indian?) film, a practice quiet common for B-movies then. That's a true Tiki TEMPLE, there. :)

On 2010-06-09 11:51, bigbrotiki wrote:
Mr Bali Hai, great frame capture! I have only seen B&W stills and footage from this movie, do you think it was colorized after?

It was filmed in Technicolor, bigbro. I wish this DVD copy had been mastered in the original aspect ratio. Who knows how many more great tikis got cropped out by the pan-and-scan? Still, a gorgeous film.

A strange looking Tiki from Omoo-Omoo The Shark God (written by Herman Melville).

DC

Coulda sworn I'd posted a couple of screencaps from Omoo-Omoo last year, but apparently not. Here they are: