Tikis in films

From the Charlie Chan movie "The Feathered Serpent"

aloha,

On 2012-03-19 09:14, bigbrotiki wrote:
I think that one is kind of rare...

Pretty rare as they go.

The one in the Descendants is not even an Okolehao bottle per se: My version (above) has no type on it, and there is a blue one that says "Vodka" on it in Phil Roberts' "Waikiki Tiki". So I think it was made as a decanter and sold empty. Mine is signed thus:

I think I would agree with that assessment... it's probably a Kay Good. It looks much smaller (in the shot) than the vodka decanter. She apparently did work in Hawaii while/after Adele Davis sold many of her molds to the Daga boys. Same basic period Mid-late 1960's and Early 70's. None of the ceramics professors or kiln operators (from the day) seem to know too much about her. (And no one can as yet tell me anything more about Lokena...)

The Vodka decanter was presumed part of a set with other colored bottles by 'Adele Davis.' I've seen a yellow tall decanter like your green one, Sven.

From 1970, The Hawaiians.

Quiet Village,

Nice find on those Tikis from the Hawaiians. They look almost museum quality.

DC

[ Edited by: Dustycajun 2012-03-20 18:27 ]

Thanks Cajun. Here is another one I didnt see mentioned: 1956, The Proud and The Profane. The movie setting is New Caledonia. I wonder if these Tiki's are correct for NC.

On 2012-03-20 20:14, The Quiet Village wrote:

I wonder if these Tiki's are correct for NC.

The large Tiki looks like these tree fern tikis that were carved in the New Hebrides Islands, located about 250 miles northwest of New Caledonia.

DC

I forgot these Tikis from the 1970 Japanese movie SPACE AMOEBA AKA:YOG-MONSTER FROM SPACE


Sorry not the greatest pics

[ Edited by: creativenative 2012-06-16 03:09 ]

One of my favorite South Seas movie images from a lobby card of AWAY ALL BOATS. It captures so well the true spirit of classic Polynesian Pop. George Nader and his wife Julie Adams back in their safe living room, a break from hard training & fighting in the WWII Pacific theater, note the typical souvenirs & trinkets from Hawaii & the South Seas especially the Tiki mugs on the sofa. ---And a new age begins.---

On 2012-03-20 13:26, bongofury wrote:
From the Charlie Chan movie "The Feathered Serpent"

Nice photo Bongo.

That Tiki was used heavily in the film's advertising, as seen in these posters and stills:

A crude knock-off Picasso's famous Tiki.

DC

In The Adams Family when they get kicked out of their house and are staying in a motel you can see a Witco world map hanging behind them as they talk in their hotel room.

sigh

even they had one of those maps. not fair

Bird of Paradise: Kino Classics Edition [Blu-ray] (1932)

This movie was recently released on Blu-ray. The quality of the picture for B&W 1932 is excellent. The sound unfortunately is a bit scratchy. Its a great vintage movie of a guy meets a Polynesian girl, falls in love, girl gets thrown in the volcano and they are chased by natives.

[ Edited by: MaukaHale 2012-06-11 10:53 ]

Thanks for the news MaukaHale. Now if someone would release the 1951 version of "Birds of Paradise".

Tiki Movies & Tiki TV @ southseascinema.org

[ Edited by: creativenative 2012-06-16 03:46 ]

More Tikis in new movies
In "Chipwrecked" a dance off in Tiki Lounge aboard cruiseliner. Note big neon wall Tikis in background

Couple images from Adam Sandler's "Just Go With It" large well lit Tikis also in background

On 2012-06-16 03:37, creativenative wrote:
More Tikis in new movies
In "Chipwrecked" a dance off in Tiki Lounge aboard cruiseliner. Note big neon wall Tikis in background

That scene was filmed at the Waldorf Hotel in Vancouver a year ago February (while I was staying there). Without having seen the movie it's a little hard to tell from the screen capture which room it is - either the upstairs tiki bar or the basement cabaret (formerly the Polynesian Room). In either case, the neon tikis would be set dressing and not permanent features. They also shot scenes in the upstairs restaurants, which were dressed as the ship's casino.

Nice info Sweet Daddy. Here are more frame captures to help you figure out the exact location. I too think any neon and wacky tikis are from the art department of the film but the beautiful mural and b.g. paintings dont seem to match the formentioned modern tropic and your comments makes sense, I bet the mural (which should be saved at all cost) and other painting are from an exsisting restaurant or bar.


And for fun another tiki (lamp-I have one like this in my bed room from Walmart I believe) in the scene, smaller scale for the little chipmunks. Obvious added set dressing

Okay, I watched Chipwrecked last weekend, and for the dance-off sequence they combined two rooms for different angles. The top picture in the previous post is the downstairs room that used to be a restaurant at one time. The fabulous mural is original (mid 50's). These days it's mostly behind a curtain (for its own protection, I think), which can easily be pulled back if needed.

The second screen grab is the main floor tiki bar (the yellow neon tiki bar sign is set dressing). You can seen one of the inset Leeteg paintings behind the head of the server. The two panels on either side of the Leeteg are set dressing, as is the tiki on the extreme right.

If you're thinking of renting this movie just for the Waldorf scenes, I'd say don't bother - they're very short and don't really give any sense of the place.

Here are a few movie posters from the 1951 remake of Bird of Paradise.

Tiki, PNG shield, busty wahine and a fiery volcano!

And a rather bizarre looking Tiki from Pagan Island.

DC

Pagan Island is available on DVD (if you want it).

The man who carved the sea god for this movie was Lewis Van Dercar he is in the Book of Tiki there is a thread about him if you are interested:
http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=7197&forum=1&hilite=pagan%20island

Came across this movie poster for Primitive Love starring Jayne Mansfield.

Never thought of Jayne as the exotic girl, but she can fill out a hula skirt.

Some campy photos from the movie can be seen here:
http://buncheness.blogspot.com/2010/04/gettin-primitive-with-jayne-mansfield.html

Leopard suit?

DC

Jayne Mansfield Grrrrr Hubba Hubba!

Great poster DC. Thanks for sharing.

Just picked up a good movie BATTLESHIP which was just released last week. Here's a couple of screen shots in a tiki bar which was filmed in SoCal somewhere. Looks like a regular bar with some South Seas tiki dressing.

Modern tiki mask under beer sign

Smaller tiki on counter behind Taylor Kitsch

Exterior of tiki bar with same modern tiki masks (just smaller) hanging on each side of front door

The 1960 Billy Wilder movie 'The Apartment' has a great scene in a NYC Chinese restaurant called the Rickshaw. There is a tiki front and center and another one by the door. The decor in the restaurant is awesome, I wish it was in color.

This link takes you to a clip from the movie.

http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/205778/Apartment-The-Movie-Clip-I-Saw-My-Lawyer.html

This website mentions the restaurant, The Rickshaw. http://www.filmsite.org/apar2.html

tikilongbeach, You found one of the seminal movies of "Mid Century Modern cinema"
(And well documented here in the other movie threads) where the Chinese/Tiki restaurant
in The Apartment is a key location for the story.

Also of note is "The Apartment" is one of two movies that is a direct influence for "Madmen"
the other being "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" it's no coincidence "Robert Morse"
was also cast in "Madmen"

I searched for 'The Apartment' because I thought it would've already been discussed, but nothing came up on TC.
Did the interior Chinese restaurant actually exist or was it a set? I've searched on the internet for the Rickshaw Restaurant and didn't find anything. Of course I know that the outside of one building is frequently used as the front of something filmed on set or in a completely different location. The magic of the movies...
The movies you listed are great.

The location shooting for "The Apartment" took place here:

205 Columbus Avenue, New York City, New York, USA
59th Street, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA
Majestic Theater, 247 West 44th Street, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA
New York City, New York, USA

Interior Sets, Office, Apartment,etc. were shot here:
The Lot - 1041 N. Formosa Avenue, West Hollywood, California, USA

It is believed but unconfirmed the Chinese Restaurant exterior is another restaurant in N.Y. city
and the interior was a set, I am still looking for the info if this is true.

I did come across this in the N.Y. Times archive:

The exterior scenes of the Chinese restaurant are listed as
The "Emerald Inn" at 205 Columbus Avenue and West 69th Street, Manhattan

It is possible they used the same restaurant for interior shots also?

It's been discussed before -

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=30762&forum=1

No reason not to add to it though.

Cool, thank you for the link to the previous discussion. That was very helpful.
The opening credit scene in Bell, Book and Candle with the mix of Oceanic and African art was the movie that spurred my interest. Gillian's apartment is awesome.

THE APARTMENT great movie great tiki bar. The movie, as one can see by the following screen shots, is worth another mention.

Nice frame captures, CN.

I just watched a terrific/ terrible Hammer production from 1965 called "SHE"on U-Tube....

I got sucked into it by its classic Ooga Booga dance scene in the title sequence:

...and before I knew, I saw some familiar faces in the crowd: The Maori Tikis from BOTH sets depicted in this post:

http://www.tikicentral.com/viewtopic.php?topic=14685&forum=1&vpost=629073

This Mayfair Beachcomber "glowing eyes" mask close up tipped me of:

...and this full figure shot above, both are of the same Maori Tiki than the one used on the Avengers set.
And these Maori poles below...

...are definitely from the "Cracksman" Tiki Club entrance shown in my earlier post.

The Hammer film was shot at Elstree Studios, also. When viewing the film it becomes obvious that the art director used a lot of props and costumes from Roman and Egyptian Cloak & Dagger films from the Elstree art department, so why go anywhere else for the "native" idols. :)

[ Edited by: bigbrotiki 2012-09-16 15:16 ]

On 2012-09-16 14:13, bigbrotiki wrote:
The Hammer film was shot at Elstree Studios, also. When viewing the film it becomes obvious that the art director used a lot of props and costumes from Roman and Egyptian Cloak & Dagger films from the Elstree art department, so why go anywhere else for the "native" idols. :)

..ummm...rather make that "Sword & Sandal" films...ya know, one of those weapon/costume genres - easy to mix up! :D

Here's the link for "SHE":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K0ccITGZg8&feature=related

The native dance troupe is credited as the OO-BLA-DA Dancers :)

Aloha,

That is really quite something! Mahalo Sven

Speaking of the Avengers. I couldn't find this photo in a search.
Interesting group of Tikis. I'm not familiar with this episode. I've had this 8x10 for 20 years.
Almost as old as this photo was when I purchased it. It seemed so vintage back then.

The only thing missing from that photo is "Emma Peel's" catsuit!

Great photo, Kiara, I don't remember seeing that in your folders. Some photos stay with us for a long time until they reveal their purpose to us. That picture of Bob Cummings with the two leopard swimsuit models I used in Tiki Modern had been in my possession for over 30 years, I brought it with me from Germany because it was a cool photo - and he was holding a light meter I used to use. :)

The Avengers episode that the Elstree Maori Tiki appears in is called "The 50000 Pound Breakfast". You get to see it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZ0TsA10xns&feature=relmfu

You see it briefly (half of it) at 4:00 minutes and at 8:14 in the background:

Interesting how muted the colors of the Tiki are in your photo. It is my assumption that they put the garish garish colored Tikis into that episode because they wanted to make the show more colorful for the American Market:

"This series was broadcast in the U.S. from January to May 1967. The American prologue of the previous series was rejigged for the colour episodes. It opened with the caption The Avengers In Color (required by ABC for colour series at that time). This was followed by Steed unwrapping the foil from a champagne bottle and Peel shooting the cork away. (Unlike the "chessboard" opening of the previous series, this new prologue was also included in UK broadcasts of the series.)" - Wikipedia

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AAJHduhHWM

I liked the show better in B&W :)

Yowza!!!!

The image above is from The Avengers' episode "A Touch of Brimstone" where Emma Peel plays the Queen of Sin... see clip. That episode was considered too risque for American audiences, and did not air in the U.S. in 1966.

The real shame was that "Honey West" was canceled after just one season in 1965 when ABC decided it would be cheaper to import the British series than to continue producing HW. :evil:

Too bad, Anne Francis was way more Tiki than Diana Rigg !!

OK, back to Tiki in FILMS...

....but Miss M. Appeal painted like Derek Yaniger :wink:

(Nice Honey West stills, John-O!)

No tikis in the movie "Argo" but Alan Arkin does mention having had a "mai tai at Trader Vic's". Made me smile.
Cheers

Here is some news on a new movie now in production called "Deep Tiki" from Cameron Crowe
Plot involves:

"A disgraced military weapons consultant who, after being deployed to a dormant base in Hawaii to supervise the launch of a spy satellite, “starts to discover himself and the relationships he left behind against the backdrop of mythical island lore and Cold War-esque diplomacy.” The story involved visions of Hawaiian Gods and a sacrifice being thrown into a volcano.

Do you want to know more?: http://collider.com/emma-stone-cameron-crowe-deep-tiki/185099/

Don't know if this one is here or not but Honolulu is not
bad, no tiki but there is a lot of cool rattan and Hawaii type decor.
Hollywoods old school idea of Hawaii.

Plot Summary for
Honolulu (1939) More at IMDbPro »
Movie star Brooks Mason tries to avoid his fans and spend some weeks on vacation. When Hawaiian plantage-owner George Smith is mistaken by Mason's fans for Mason and brought to Mason's home. They decide to change their identitiess for a few weeks. But George Smith is mobbed by Mason's fans again on a personal appearance tour in New York, Mason falls in love to dancer Dorothy March, who also is on her way to Hawaii. Problems for Mason arise due to the fact that Smith is engaged with Cecilia Grayson, and her wealthy father believes, that Smith has double-crossed him. Mason isn't able to establish a connection with Smith in New York due to his agent's orders... Written by

Director:
Edward Buzzell

Writers:
Herbert Fields (screenplay), Frank Partos (screenplay), and 1 more credit »

Stars:
Eleanor Powell, Robert Young and George Burns | See full cast and crew

Funny Skip, I just watched the movie on TCM this morning
the big Hula/Modern dance number at the end was a lot of fun.

Well it looks like you were doing what I did.
Yeah the bandstand wraped in rattan was cool.
Like to watch those old movies at Christmas time.
Happy Turkey day.

John O did post about this movie here on this thread.

Adventures of Tintin had some ancient treasures lined up

Good eye H.W.

On 2012-03-18 08:05, bigbrotiki wrote:
CN, I think what we are looking at is the bamboo-colored version of this Okolehao bottle:

(Above is from page 39 of this thread)

Yeah! I just got my own, obviously on left of photo. I was fascinated by the decanter and while I was looking for dark blue glass floats yesterday I found this one (I love the tapa colors). Thanks again Big Bro for the info.

BTW I also picked up those brown little tiki salt & pepper shakers, sorry probably wrong thread but anybody know about them?

[ Edited by: creativenative 2013-02-21 22:04 ]

While not a TV show or movie, I remember going to the arcades quite a bit as a kid, and coming across a fighting game called World Heroes 2. There was a character named "Mudman" who hailed from Papua New Guinea. He was actually the first "Tiki" anything I ever stumbled across as a kid and I was instantly fascinated with what this was all about.

Below is a link from Youtube of a person playing as Mudman in a game, enjoy my first taste of Tiki!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae1zHxHKnjg