Appease the volcano god....or else!

I once saw a movie from the 1950's about a man who falls in love with a native girl on a fictional Pacific island and it ends with her jumping into the volcano to appease the pagan gods. Does anyone remember the title? Its driving me crazy.

Sounds like my life story... don't know the name of the movie though.

Bird of Paradise?

Yeah, that would be "Bird of Paradise" (1951) with Debra Paget as the native girl sacrificed to the volcano.

Or, it could be the 1932 version with Delores del Rio. Title is the same either way.

The 1932 version with Dolores del Rio and Joel McCrea is on youtube. Great "greet the ship with the outriggers" scene! I've got it on pause right now and am going back to watch more.

Speaking of appeasing the volcano gods, the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan , "Joe versus the Volcano" is pretty funny. The multi functinal luggage/liferaft is a nifty idea!!

=chuckle=

I can think of a few women I have known that would be good candidates for volcano god sacrifice.

=grin=

Mustang Island Tiki

...but the volcano always throws me out...at least I've still got my trunks!

On 2008-03-08 13:17, PiPhiRho wrote:
Yeah, that would be "Bird of Paradise" (1951) with Debra Paget as the native girl sacrificed to the volcano.

Or, it could be the 1932 version with Delores del Rio. Title is the same either way.

Excellent recommendation, PiPhiRho.

A review of Bird of Paradise:

Given the early-30s success of native-themed films like Tabu and others that titillated American audiences with "ethnographic" shots of nude native women, director King Vidor, on loan from MGM, reasoned that he could do the formula one better: cast the breathtakingly beautiful Dolores del Rio as a native woman, but keep the "exotic" nudity that made those, um, scientific films so popular. The idea, aside from seeing how far they could push the envelope, was that as long as she's playing a native woman, it would be OK. I'm not sure whether the casting of Del Rio had something to do with the general acceptability of the film; was she, being Mexican, somehow seen as lower on the great chain of disrobe than an Anglo actress would have been?

A young and shirtless Joel McCrea plays an American sailor who chooses to remain on an island paradise after he falls for native princess Luana (Del Rio) during an enthusiastic luau. Editor Archie Marshek edits the hell out of the scene, in which Del Rio's costume—a grass skirt and a magic lei that somehow avoids revealing her bare torso—shockingly isn't the pinnacle. She dances faster and faster as the tempo of the music speeds up; cinematographer Lucien N. Andriot favors alternating low- and high-angle shots, the former to emphasize the Busby Berkeley–choreographed hip-shaking and the latter to emphasize other kinds of shaking. Her fellow partiers whip themselves into an orgiastic frenzy before the men lose control and carry the women bodily into the jungle to ravish them; the women are notably OK with all this. Whew. Is it warm in here? McCrea attempts to join in the fun and carry her away into the forest to ravish her, but her father the chief objects: she's a princess, and only a prince can ravish her.

That's not enough to stop the young lovebirds. There's some gorgeous underwater photography during a nightswimming scene in which a nude Del Rio cavorts underwater with a nearly nude McCrea in one of the most beautiful and erotic sequences ever put on film. Soon enough, after a vigorous lesson in the art of kissing, McCrea interrupts her wedding to carry her off to another, nearby island paradise; in the space of a fade-out she's speaking English and wearing clothing. Ah, civilization. Will they live happily ever after? Well, producer David O. Selznick reportedly told Vidor, “I don't care what story you use as long as we call it Bird of Paradise and Del Rio jumps into a flaming volcano at the finish.”

Now, Del Rio's lack of clothing isn't the only reason to watch this film, although it's likely the only reason anyone remembers it (you know, for its value as a milestone in the history of film, not for prurient reasons). It's the first film with a full symphonic score, for instance. And both leads are magnetic. I'm beginning to appreciate McCrea more as an actor—he's so unassuming and effortlessly charming that it's easy to miss his talent. Del Rio, given all the distractions (lack of clothing, lack of English—did the filmmakers really bother to have her speak a Polynesian language, or was that just gibberish?), still manages to give a good performance. Even with the film's belittling attitude toward her, she managed to steal a few scenes, such as one in which the injured McCrea requests water and she can't figure out how to work the modern appliances in his ship. What could have been yet another ho-ho-silly-natives moment becomes touching because of her silent desperation. The story is pretty tired, the depictions of the natives pretty xenophobic, the film's message (east is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet) pretty white man's burden, but it's worth watching for a few moments that transcend the film they're stuck in.

Yeah, I love joe versus the volcano :)

A blurry Bird Of Paradise (del Rio) is on a Roku channel-World Worth-free