tiki bar scene in old (or not so old) movie

Sounds pretty fab!
My copy is somewhere between Canada & the UK right now, so I'm really looking forward to seeing it. It's readily available on eBay on DVD & video, and probably not too difficult to find elsewhere.

Trader Woody

Does the circus count as a tiki bar? I don't think so either, BUT....... In Cecil B. Demille's 1952 Best Picture Oscar-winning film "The Greatest Show on Earth" there is a fun hula dancing scene that takes place under the big-top. It's got it all... goofy circus Hawaiian music, wild hula costumes, wacky(waiki) clowns, and aerialists performing to The Hawaiian War Chant. A few minutes later Gorilla X makes an appearance spanking a scantily-clad savage maiden in center ring! All that and a bag of peanuts!

-Weird Unc

On 2002-04-24 14:06, Kailuageoff wrote:
Donovan's Reef, Widescreen collection. 1963/color/108 min./US NR/CAN GDescription A snooty Boston girl arrives on a tiny South Pacific isle in search of her missing father and encounters two old salty-dogs. The mismatched trio creates an abundance of lighthearted fun in this last Ford-Wayne pairing. Synopsis Navy hero Guns Donovan remains on a Hawaiian island after World War II and runs a saloon named Donovan's Reef. The island community has a lively mix of rambunctious Americans and Hawaiians and into this paradise arrives Amelia, a young, prim and proper Bostonian in search of her father, Dr. Dedham. Some years ago, he deserted his family and began a new life on the island. Amelia learns that Dr. Denham fell in love with a Polynesian princess and fathered three children with her before she died. Soon Amelia's chilly New England reserve is melted away by the amorous attentions of Guns Donovan and the beauty of the island and its people.

FYI: This movie is on AMC tomorrow afternoon, Tuesday Dec. 24, at 1:30 pm eastern time.

[ Edited by: Kailuageoff on 2002-12-23 10:46 ]

[ Edited by: Kailuageoff on 2002-12-23 10:47 ]

The interresting and challenging mystery that I have been trying to unravel while watching a lot of these movies is figuring out which of them take place on location in real Tiki Bars, and which ones were on sets. I posted a message about the Bamboo Lounge in Goodfellas a few weeks ago, wondering about this, and no one replied! (sniff sniff no one loves me..).

I had flirted with the idea of making a sidebar in my book listing Tiki movies, but my publisher rejected it as being too off-topic (had to also axe some other cool pop culture sites to visit that aren't strictly Tiki - Superdawg in Chicago is a must-visit...).

Anyway:

I Am Cuba: Sven MADE me sit down and watch this amazing piece of communist propaganda last time I was in LA. Incredible not only for the scenes shot in Havana's Trader Vics, but for the whole surreal tone of the film, and the amazing cinematography.

Don't forget Gene Hackman's The Package, which includes scenes shot at Ciral's House of Tiki on Chicago's Hyde Park area. This bar closed just a few weeks after Kahiki did.

Also, pick up the first season of Twin Peaks on DVD - there are a few lengthy scenes in Dr. Jacoby's (Russ Tamblyn) office, which incldes a mural of a Hawaiian Sunset, and coconut tree with a secret coconut that figures intot the plot, a muzak system that plays Hawaiian music, several Tiki masks (apparently from Oceanic Arts), a box of paper umbrellas, each labeled with a reminder of a signifigant event that took place while a particular drink was being consumed, and other Tiki/Hawaiiana stuff in the wacky shrink's office.

Oh, also, the best thing about Rapa Nui (the movie!) is Stewart Copeland's score.

I got the CD on Ebay for about $2.

Amazing tribal sounding atmospheric percussive instrumental...

Not unlike my own Left Orbit Temple project, actually...

On 2002-12-23 13:24, tikibars wrote:
The interresting and challenging mystery that I have been trying to unravel while watching a lot of these movies is figuring out which of them take place on location in real Tiki Bars, and which ones were on sets.

This is sort of akin to my passion of finding record covers that were shot at, or in front of Tiki bars. Here the fun thing is that they often pretend to be a real tropical locale. So far most of them were done in LA off course:
So far I have found covers shot at The Luau, Trader Vic's, Don the Beachcomber's, The Polynesian, and The Tikis. There is also a Canadian record cover shot at the Montreal Kon -Tiki.

As far as tikis on TV goes, there's an episode of Dharma & Greg where Dharma films a beer commercial which is set in the jungle, and she swings on a vine right past a huge tiki.

Okay, okay..
If you're into a raunchy movie from 2000, that shows occasional boobs, but many tikis, sit back and watch that stupid "Psycho Beach Party" on HBO2.

It's just a retro-beach-thriller-tounge-in-cheek flick with purposely bad surfing effects to mimic those of the 60's.

Raunchy? Absolutely! Would I name my kid "Chicklet?" Perhaps...depending on what I was drinking at the time.

But almost worth watching just to see the props. Remember, I said ALMOST.

-C.

I loved Psycho Beach Party! It's a good late night, drinking a Mai Tai movie. Very goofy, and I've grown to love Lauren Ambrose.

Not a tiki sighting, but a tiki reference in the original version of Oceans Eleven. About 15 minutes into the film, two characters meet up somewhere in Calif. and reminisce about their trip to Trader Vics. The dailogue goes something like this.
Male: "Remember when we had all those rum drinks at the Trader's?"
Female: "Sure. I don't think I've had any rum drinks since then."
The inference seems to be they had a very, very good time that evening.
Also, I watched Donovan's Reef before Christmas. The movie is full of tiki's, outriggers, hula dancing, drinking, tiki bar room brawling, etc. The movie concludes with Lee Marvin setting up a Lionel train set in his tiki bar. I remember someone here being into model trains and tiki's, so this is definitley their movie.
Looks like Donovan's Reef was shot on Kuai.

Not a bar but Lee Marvin's Character in "The Big Heat" has a Moai on a sideboard in his apartment. Oh yeah, and he throws a pot of hot coffee in his girlfriend's face. To top it off Glenn Ford eats the largest steak in cinema for dinner.

Not a bar scene per se, but I am thinking this appearance has something to do with the increased popularity of the mug in question. Why else would those things be attracting such bids on Ebay? :lol:

Ferris Bueller is enjoying a pool-side cocktail as he calls his pal Cameron. His vessel of choice? A Stockton Islander hula girl on palm tree mug.

Funny thing, that wasn't in the original shooting script.

Danke Schoen,
midnite

Last night we watched "A Very Brady Sequel"
and there's a bit in it where the bad guys runs over a little Tiki statue in his jeep, causing a flat. He then chucks it away, landing near a tarantula. I guess that's some sort of homage to the original Brady Bunch in Hawaii episodes.

I'll leave the film review to my wife: "That was the biggest pile of shite I've ever seen."

Trader Woody

BBC1 has just showed "Rapa Nui", what a great film, its like when i first watched "Mad Max-Beyond the thunder dome". I know its been discused on this thread before but how tiki is it (in the sense of faux-Oceanic, all cultures mixed up and far removed from the real island) fantastic.Mad Max made me want to wear leather and drive round in beat up trucks, Rapa Nui makes me want to build and drag huge polystyrene maoi's around.

Here's a larger pic of that Ferris Bueller shot:

Now that's SWANK!

On 2003-01-04 17:53, the75stingray wrote:
Okay, okay..
If you're into a raunchy movie from 2000, that shows occasional boobs, but many tikis, sit back and watch that stupid "Psycho Beach Party" on HBO2.

It's just a retro-beach-thriller-tounge-in-cheek flick with purposely bad surfing effects to mimic those of the 60's.

Raunchy? Absolutely! Would I name my kid "Chicklet?" Perhaps...depending on what I was drinking at the time.

But almost worth watching just to see the props. Remember, I said ALMOST.

-C.

Psycho Beach Party RULES!

It's one of those bad-on-purpose movies that you have to be in a certain mood for, but it makes good viewing when you come home after too many Zombies and need to sober up before going to bed... tons and tons of Tikis!

Also, I saw Catch Me If You Can yesterday, and there is an ALMOST Tiki scene in the movie - a motel has a palm-trees-and-bamboo theme, a little bar with an almost-Tiki-but-not-quite-close-enough decor... "missed it by that much"...

Pretty good flick tho - the costume and set designers NAILED the mid-60's. Excellent job. Tons of cool awesome mid-60's (non Tiki) stuff to ogle at... the sets, the props, the cars, the clothes, and the dames all look amazing.

The movie is entertaining, but hardly high art.

Not that Psycho Beach party is exactly Bergman, Kurosawa, or Felinni either!

You guys forgot Boogie Nights. When Mark enters the garden of Burt Reynolds and stands at the pool, check out the light string in the background! A row of gorgeous colored little Moai heads that move in the warm summer air. When I saw that, I knew the movie would be a good one. Two seconds later Mark stands at the bar next to the pool and downs a drink. What else can you ask for!

I came home late from work tonight, plopped down on the couch, and flipped on the telley. Some movie (which I later learned was called "Late For Dinner") was on, and I found myself watching the whole damned thing for one silly reason...

The plot concerns two guys who are cryogenically frozen in 1962, and thawed in 1991. It seemed kind of dumb, and I normally would have surfed right past it, but I noticed that one guy was wearing a pendant. It looked like a Tiki.

Given that the guy was frozen in 1962, it us very well likely that he could have been wearing a Tiki pendant.

But I could never really get a good look at it.

So I spent the next 90 minutes watching this dumb movie, trying to get a good look at the guy's chest in the event that he may have been wearing a Tiki.

Never did find out....

But I DID score FIVE new vintage books on South Seas adventure (a al Kon-Tiki but by other authors) today... more news on that later.

I digress.

So - has anyone seen Late for Dinner, and is that a Tiki around Frankie's neck?

Watched a completely excellent movie last night called "The Breaking Point" with John Garfield. It's based on Hemingway's To Have and Have Not. There is a Bogart film by the same title, but I guess that one doesn't really follow Papa's book.
Anyway, there is a bar scene shot in a town called Newport, California that has lots of bamboo, fishing floats and oher nautical stuff. I didn't see any tikis, but the bar had a great look.

[ Edited by: Kailuageoff on 2003-02-11 11:20 ]

We saw "The Big Mouth" with Jerry Lewis about a month ago.
Jerry= not so funny/ we miss Dean
Tiki= alot
And I can't remember the name of the movie, but John Wayne and Lee Marvin in the South Seas. Besides some great John Wayne it had some great TIKI too.

The John Wayne / Lee Marvin film was Donovan's Reef.

Breaking Point......There is a sign outside that bar that says "Christman's Hut or Christian's Hut" hard to make out exact name. As John Garfield enters bar you can briefly see some kind of tabletop tiki with a grass skirt on as he walks by.....There is also a tropical nightclub (West Indies Club?) in "Another Thin Man"-1939....

And you can see lots of Tikis in Swingers when Vince takes Jon to Vegas....You're sooo money....

Christian's Hut, named after the Fletcher Christian character in Mutiny on the Bounty, started on Catalina Island where the 1935 movie version was filmed. It than moved to Newport Beach on Balboa Island and other locations opened in Corona Del Mar and Hawaii. (BOT pp. 132-133)

......also there is a tropical/bamboo nightclub in "The Fatal Hour" (Mr. Wong...oriental detective) 1940-called "the Neptune Club"....and in "The Thin Red Line" there was a breif shot of a tiki/idol when they were going throgh the jungle....

"The Blue Gardenia" is on right now on Turner Classic Movies (7PM Pacific). I recall there being a hawaiian bar scene in this film.

Yes!!! If you missed it see if you video store has it. The Blue Gardenia is a tropical bar with a great multiple giant clamshell fountain, carved masks, glass floats, lotsa bamboo and matting, Nat King Cole as the house band (all wearing leis), waiters in hawaiian shirts.......Whew! And they are drinking Polynesian Pearl Divers, and reading some of the ingrediants off the menu for the "Mermaid's Downfall"....A must see. Also Raymond Burr has a cool modern fish painting at his "Pad" everyone has a home bar.....

Moral of the movie "The Blue Gardenia":

If Raymond Burr offers you a sixth round of Polynesian Pearl Divers on the first date say no! Especially if he says "they're mostly pineapple juice".

This is one of my favorite movies (I actually saw it in the theater when it came out!!) Finally got the dvd and noticed that the tiki bar is MOST LIKELY Kelbo's!! Now I've never been to Kelbo's but I could see signs in the background for the "Coco(a?) Bowl and folks are dancing, just as I heard people did at Kelbo's. So...there you go. Anyone able to verify??

On 2002-09-17 10:01, bigbadtikidaddy wrote:
I've had a video for so long called "Tapeheads" with john cusak & tim robbins. It's totally 80's & really bad & I love it.
There is a tiki bar scene where cusaks' sleeve catches fire while reaching over a flaming scorpion bowl, which is a very real hazzard!
It's around the same genre as "the experts" that stingray wrote about. Another movie that is soo bad it's good.

Just got back from seeing Terminator 3.

In front of the moive was a trailer for a new Nicolas Cage flick called Matchstick Men. Look for a Tiki Mug in the trailer - blink and you'll miss it! It's that lame and all-too-common Harvey's tumbler. It's on a bathroom sink in the foreground and the lower left corner of the screen. Just one more of the many, many examples of Polynesian Pop making its way back into mainstream pop culture.
They also showed a trailer for Kill Bill (Tarantino's new flick) - looks really dull.

Anyway, T3 was decent, but not spectacular. A few twists on the Terminator mythos, and some exciting-enough action scenes. The last 15 minutes peter out and the movie ends with a whimper rather than a bang... it feels like there should have been another 15 minutes, but the movie ran over-time so they just lopped off the ending, creating room for T4... which would be the big fight in the future between the men and the machines, which is what I thought this movies was going to be, but it isn't.
The Tiki connection? Ummmmm... well, in the original Terminaor, there's a scene in the Tiki Motel...

Speaking of Nick Cage......check out Vampire's Kiss.....There is a 2 foot tall Tiki seen several times in his headshrinker's office......Also I was wondering if in the original King Kong from the 1930's......it looks like Fay Wray is tied to 2 giant Tikis by the natives for a sacrifice to Kong?

I was reading a post here about a month back, and someone posted a photo from a (around 1950's) movie with a beatnik and a chick dancing in a swingin beach shack with tikis and a tiki bar in the back, and now I would like to save it, and I can't find it. I don't remember the details to do a search.
Any recollection would be appreciated.

On 2002-05-04 20:15, the75stingray wrote:

I'm almost embarassed to admit I sat and watched this (again) last weekend...

But have you seen "The Experts" with John Travolta like from the 80's?

Travolta & his friend are secretly sent to Russia to fix up an old Tiki bar in this 50's USA town (secret KGB experiment).

Naturally, they have to ruin the Polynesian establishment to create a "New York" style night club where Travolta and his wife show off their dancing techniques. It WAS dancing back then...I think.

If you HAVE seen this, don't be ashamed to post it here - it'd make me feel a helluva lot better about it.

I stumbled across this hideous excuse for a movie while channel surfing - just in time for the main characters (John Travolta, Arye Gross and Charles Martin Smith - a guy who looks amazingly like Sabu...) to buy a tiki bar called "The Polynesian Lounge".

I hadn't seen any of the movie prior to this, so, having no clue to the plot, I stuck around.

Bad idea.

The outside had the standard bamboo & thatch, but the inside was fully decked - palm trees, bamboo & lahala matting everywhere, nets, beachcomber lamps, masks, carved poles, even fish tanks and a wall-length mural. There were coconut mugs on the bar and I'll be damned if I didn't spot a few vintage ones in there, too! It was a great lookin' place!

However, a few scenes later THEY TORE IT ALL DOWN, carted it all out and THREW IT ALL AWAY, all to the sounds of a really crappy cover version of "Back in the U.S.S.R." They proceeded to turn it into a really bad, neon & chrome club called "So So Ho". I stopped watching shortly thereafter, my day having been ruined...

75 Stingray: sorry to resurrect the bad memory, but there's at least two of us in the same boat now!

i like Donovan's Reef its a good movie and there are some tikis arround. it was filmed in Kuaui. i also saw a movie the other night the stoned age, and there was a scene in some guys backyard around a pool where there were a few tikis and maybe a bar.

Watched "A Place in the Sun" (1951) with Montgomery Clift, Elizabeth Taylor and Shelly Winters last night on DVD. Toward the end of the movie, Clift is at a home luau thrown by Taylor's parents. Everyone is wearing leis and aloha shirts, drinking out of pineapples, etc. There is some great Hawaiian music playing on the Hi-Fi (one would assume) and then suddenly they cut to a couple of live musicians. Although I didn't spot any tikis, it was a fairly long scene.

"Where Danger Lives" will be shown on TCM tomorrow, Wednesday, at 9:30 ET / 12:30 PT. There's a great tiki bar scene in the movie. For more on the movie see the first post in this topic.

I'm glad you guys brought up "Psycho Beach Party" which got my personal vote for Best Movie of 2000 - along with "The Woman Chaser," a snappy neo-noir based on Charles Willeford's pulp novel shot in B&W and set in the early 60s. There's a tiki bar sequence and the incredible lounge soundtrack features a lot of exotica (I don't think it was even ever officially released, though - someone gave me a copy of a bootleg they found on eBay, I strongly recommend your searching it out, as well as the extremely rare video - its obscurity is downright criminal.)

Speaking of tikis on TV, anyone ever see the episode of "My Favorite Martian" where the last half is set in a tiki bar? I caught it by accident late one night on TV Land and didn't have a g.d. tape handy. It was amazing.

There is also "Elviki" - tikis in Elvis flicks. You can find prominent tiki statues in beach party scenes from "Girl Happy" and "Clambake" in addition to "Blue Hawaii" and "Paradise, Hawaiian Style." His other movie set in Hawaii, "Girls! Girls! Girls!" seems to almost downplay its island setting, for some reason (probably because it was originally written to take place in New Orleans, hence the creole-tinged non-hit "Song of the Shrimp" ).

There are also prominent tikis via South Sea island settings in several Japanese monster movies including "King Kong vs Godzilla" ('62) "Mothra" ('62) and "Godzilla vs the Sea Monster" ('67). There's also a lengthy tropical island segment (no tikis, but lotsa hula girls) in the 1966 Gamera epic "War of the Monsters" which just came out on DVD retailing for 6 or 7 bucks.

Another film noir that featured a scene in a tiki bar (in Palm Springs) is 1950's "711 Ocean Drive" starring Edmond O'Brien, which I've shown in Thrillville but is not currently available on video - but it turns up routinely on the Mystery Channel, so watch for it if you have cable, and keep those blank tapes handy...

For a cool movie with a Tiki name (even though it takes place in Japan) check out the House Of Bamboo...

It's even got a kooky Esquivel-esque theme song...

Aaron...

"Number 64,
The house with a bamboo door,
Bamboo walls and a bamboo roof,
It's even got a bamboo floor..."

All the talk about the Weeki Wachee mermaids lately has reminded me of a movie I saw as a kid (early 60's). It's set in a nightclub or something that has a big glass tank where bikini'd babes swim while sucking air from hoses (like at the W.W.). There's a guy that keeps saying "What lungs!" meaning of course "What boobs!" Does anyone know what this movie is? It's making me kind of mental.

"Don't Knock the Twist" with Chubby Checker has most of its early scenes in a tiki bar called the "Spice Islands Club". There are tiki torches, glass fish floats, bamboo and tiki masks on the walls. It was on TV while I was drinking my morning cup of java. I didn't see the whole movie, so I can't say whether they did the "tiki twist".

I don't know of a website but Beachbum Berry (a screenwriter in Hollywood by trade) has written a couple columns for Tiki News lisitng all the Tikis he's seen in movies on TV

While we are on this subject, there is an English movie called the Cracksman that has a splendid Tiki bar scene
I have a PAL version if anyone has conversion capabilities

quote]
On 2002-04-12 06:43, Trader Woody wrote:

Is there a website that deals with Tiki in movies? Someone actually wrote a book that details moments in film where famous actresses remove their clothing(!), so I'm sure there would be some interest for something similar with Tikis.

Trader Woody

Those Tikis were decor set up for a Lounge night at the Derby in LA

the Swingers filmmakers were shooting in the other room then came in and saw the setup and shot without permission and without credit to Chris Nichols who set that up

the main Tiki in the setup is from Danny Balz' The Tikis them park

On 2003-02-16 10:52, bongofury wrote:

And you can see lots of Tikis in Swingers when Vince takes Jon to Vegas....You're sooo money....

On 2003-01-07 11:08, midnite_tiki wrote:
Not a bar scene per se, but I am thinking this appearance has something to do with the increased popularity of the mug in question. Why else would those things be attracting such bids on Ebay? :lol:

Ferris Bueller is enjoying a pool-side cocktail as he calls his pal Cameron. His vessel of choice? A Stockton Islander hula girl on palm tree mug.

Funny thing, that wasn't in the original shooting script.
Danke Schoen,
midnite

Here is a side note of recent news, this scum bag who also starred in the film made headlines in the news today.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/07/03/actor.charged.ap/index.html

Here is a larger photo of the tiki scene(Pop's pic seem to be gone).

REVIEW OF DONOVAN'S REEF

My review anyway ... rather silly Duke vehicle for brawlin' good times w Lee Marvin ... looks rather more like a movie written FOR these actors rather than for the story's sake --

BUT -- tikis galore! Tiki bar! Beach scenes with big tikis greeting white folks.

Also particularly fond of a scene where Cesar Romero -- I think it was Cesar, or a guy who looks a lot like him -- gussied up in this outrageous French diplomatic uniform with a giant s*&$-eating grin and watching some local girl get crowned as Queen during a super-duper hula ceremony.

Also -- please don't forget MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY, the one with Marlon Brando.

My fave scene: the Tahitian king is throwing a luau for his English guests ... there's a big dance number ... the king's daughter, instantly smitten with Marlon Brando, starts dancing suggestively in front of Marlon while his eyes light up like 100 watt bulbs ... the dance is fast, lots of drumming, the day is perfect, the palm trees bend in the gentle breeze, the babe is island hot and Marlon sits there in his English naval officer's uniform smiling a smile that everyone who's ever had sex instantly understands.

And if that's not tiki, then nothing is!

And another thing!

So many TCers have such outstanding multimedia skills, it seems like someone would be smart enough to download all these tiki movie scenes onto one DVD and then distribute it to the rest of us who are dying of tiki thirst ... I'd certainly be willing to pay a "contribution."

Call the DVD "That's Tikitainment!"

Anyone noticed the gorgeous Tiki bar-The Tropical Isle-in "Where the Boys Are" ?

On 2003-08-14 19:47, Sweet Daddy Tiki wrote:
All the talk about the Weeki Wachee mermaids lately has reminded me of a movie I saw as a kid (early 60's). It's set in a nightclub or something that has a big glass tank where bikini'd babes swim while sucking air from hoses (like at the W.W.). There's a guy that keeps saying "What lungs!" meaning of course "What boobs!" Does anyone know what this movie is? It's making me kind of mental.

That scene was also from the movie mentioned in the above post, "Where the Boys Are"- It's a pretty cool film about college kids in Ft. Lauderdale for spring break. The cast includes a very young George Hamilton and Frank Gorshin as a hep jazz musician.

If anyone gets to NYC, there's a bar called The Coral Room on W. 29th St. that features a retro nautical motif and has a giant aquarium behind the bar with performers in mermaid outfits. So that Wahini's get equal rights, there are mermen on Sundays.

I just sat through "The Muppets Treasure Island" (Jim Henson productio)with my 3yo daughter. About two/thirds into the movie the little rat-muppets are sitting around a tiny tiki bar on top of the ship they are sailing on. Cool!