Pleasant and generally interesting escapist fare. Howard Keel's bachelor character(Hap) decides to ditch his Ohio teaching job when presented with the fantasy opportunity of making a living in Tahiti, exporting coconut products. He envisions a laid back life in a tropical paradise, with native maidens swooning over him, which is what we get in this film. Esther is the 'pagan' maiden he most connects with. She is supposed to be half American. Although she looks like an over-tanned Caucasian, she seems to have absorbed more of the Tahitian half of her cultural heritage. But, now she is bored with her uncomplicated life and is looking for an opportunity to move to the USA. Hap just may be her ticket to this dream, after he too gets bored with the slow pace of Tahitian life.
Although Esther is given top billing , this clearly is mainly Howard's film. I love listening to his rich baritone singing voice, and he does not disappoint here, in his second MGM musical. The frequent inclusion of natives(both real and stand ins) in the scenes between the romantic twosomes is a definite plus, along with the gorgeous Hawaiian scenery, as a stand in for Tahiti. In contrast to the pronouncements of some others that the songs are pedestrian, I found them quite adequate for the situations, no doubt aided by Keel's renditions. True, the total score doesn't compare with Keel's previous musical "Anne Get your Gun", nor his subsequent musical "Showboat", but it certainly tops the truly 'pedestrian' songs given him in his second paring with Esther, in "Texas Carnival". Most are love songs or expressions of the joy of their lives, but "Etiquette" is a fun novelty song that gets Howard interacting with his adopted native children. The plot is quite hokey, but who cares. This is a trip to paradise, as most of us imagine it, at least for a while. Yes, "South Pacific" was then the rage on stage, but the film version was far in the future. Thus, this film presumably helped fill the gap between, and was a modest box office success. Plus, this story is much less complicated,if that is what you like. Too bad Howard didn't get to star in that later film, as well.
Of course, there is some hip-swinging dancing, by both sexes, mostly during a festival, and mostly somewhere between the languid Hawaiian style and the frenetic traditional Tahitian style, as seen in "The Bounty", for example. Perhaps more impressive is Freddie Letuli's knife-juggling and twirling act. Although billed as the fire knife dancer, no flames were included here. A native Samoan, Freddie organized shows of Polynesian dancing, along with his act. Although not specified, the main dance scenes may have included his dancers. A few years before, he got the idea of adding flames to the ends of a twirling baton(not knife), and created a sensation.
A young Rita Moreno provides a much more authentic-appearing Tahitian(although actually of Puerto Rican heritage)than Esther. If I were Hap, I would have set my sights on her. Rita usually played subsidiary ethnic women, and still performs today, 65 years later! Her roles in "The King and I" and "West Side Story" are perhaps the best remembered. Unfortunately, her one song in this film was cut.
MGM signed Howard as their answer to Warner Brother's Gordon MacRae. In fact, Howard had already done, on stage, Gordon's later two most famous film roles, in "Carousel" and "Oklahoma", before scoring a big success in his first MGM musical "Anne Get your Gun", released earlier in '50. The present film was obviously a lower budget offering, without clear cut hit songs intended. Of course, he would go on to star in a string of popular musicals, with various top bona fide singing actresses as his leading lady. These include: "Showboat", "Calamity Jane"(my favorite), Kiss Me Kate" and "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers"(his favorite). He would again costar with Esther the following year in the musical comedy "Texas Carnival", but they had to share the spotlight with Red Skelton, Anne Miller , and Keenan Wynn. Their final film as the costars was, the quite different, "Jupiter's Delight".
This film is essentially a color remake of the very early talky(1929) "The Pagan", with a rather similar screen play, and which was actually largely filmed in Tahiti. The title and theme song of the present film are derived from the theme song for that film, composed by the productive team of Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, who also came out with the famous "Singing in the Rain" that year. However, "The Pagan", was not otherwise a musical, whereas the present film is a light musical. The other tunes were newly composed by veteran tunesmith Harry Warren, with Arthur Freed again doing the lyrics. Warren composed most of the songs for a number of MGM musicals in the late '40s and early '50s, after having done the same at Fox studios during their string of musical hits during the early '40s.
Incidentally, the word 'pagan' here obvious connotes an exotic primitive culture and mindset, rather than a strict religious meaning. In fact, it is derived from the Latin 'paganus', meaning rustic or primitive people. Christianity first took hold mostly in the larger cities of the late Roman Empire. Thus, the generally more recalcitrant empire paganus population was,for a time, symbolic of the old non-Christian beliefs and practices.
Currently available as part of the expensive Esther Williams Collection 2 DVD set
Although Esther is given top billing , this clearly is mainly Howard's film. I love listening to his rich baritone singing voice, and he does not disappoint here, in his second MGM musical. The frequent inclusion of natives(both real and stand ins) in the scenes between the romantic twosomes is a definite plus, along with the gorgeous Hawaiian scenery, as a stand in for Tahiti. In contrast to the pronouncements of some others that the songs are pedestrian, I found them quite adequate for the situations, no doubt aided by Keel's renditions. True, the total score doesn't compare with Keel's previous musical "Anne Get your Gun", nor his subsequent musical "Showboat", but it certainly tops the truly 'pedestrian' songs given him in his second paring with Esther, in "Texas Carnival". Most are love songs or expressions of the joy of their lives, but "Etiquette" is a fun novelty song that gets Howard interacting with his adopted native children. The plot is quite hokey, but who cares. This is a trip to paradise, as most of us imagine it, at least for a while. Yes, "South Pacific" was then the rage on stage, but the film version was far in the future. Thus, this film presumably helped fill the gap between, and was a modest box office success. Plus, this story is much less complicated,if that is what you like. Too bad Howard didn't get to star in that later film, as well.
Of course, there is some hip-swinging dancing, by both sexes, mostly during a festival, and mostly somewhere between the languid Hawaiian style and the frenetic traditional Tahitian style, as seen in "The Bounty", for example. Perhaps more impressive is Freddie Letuli's knife-juggling and twirling act. Although billed as the fire knife dancer, no flames were included here. A native Samoan, Freddie organized shows of Polynesian dancing, along with his act. Although not specified, the main dance scenes may have included his dancers. A few years before, he got the idea of adding flames to the ends of a twirling baton(not knife), and created a sensation.
A young Rita Moreno provides a much more authentic-appearing Tahitian(although actually of Puerto Rican heritage)than Esther. If I were Hap, I would have set my sights on her. Rita usually played subsidiary ethnic women, and still performs today, 65 years later! Her roles in "The King and I" and "West Side Story" are perhaps the best remembered. Unfortunately, her one song in this film was cut.
MGM signed Howard as their answer to Warner Brother's Gordon MacRae. In fact, Howard had already done, on stage, Gordon's later two most famous film roles, in "Carousel" and "Oklahoma", before scoring a big success in his first MGM musical "Anne Get your Gun", released earlier in '50. The present film was obviously a lower budget offering, without clear cut hit songs intended. Of course, he would go on to star in a string of popular musicals, with various top bona fide singing actresses as his leading lady. These include: "Showboat", "Calamity Jane"(my favorite), Kiss Me Kate" and "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers"(his favorite). He would again costar with Esther the following year in the musical comedy "Texas Carnival", but they had to share the spotlight with Red Skelton, Anne Miller , and Keenan Wynn. Their final film as the costars was, the quite different, "Jupiter's Delight".
This film is essentially a color remake of the very early talky(1929) "The Pagan", with a rather similar screen play, and which was actually largely filmed in Tahiti. The title and theme song of the present film are derived from the theme song for that film, composed by the productive team of Nacio Herb Brown and Arthur Freed, who also came out with the famous "Singing in the Rain" that year. However, "The Pagan", was not otherwise a musical, whereas the present film is a light musical. The other tunes were newly composed by veteran tunesmith Harry Warren, with Arthur Freed again doing the lyrics. Warren composed most of the songs for a number of MGM musicals in the late '40s and early '50s, after having done the same at Fox studios during their string of musical hits during the early '40s.
Incidentally, the word 'pagan' here obvious connotes an exotic primitive culture and mindset, rather than a strict religious meaning. In fact, it is derived from the Latin 'paganus', meaning rustic or primitive people. Christianity first took hold mostly in the larger cities of the late Roman Empire. Thus, the generally more recalcitrant empire paganus population was,for a time, symbolic of the old non-Christian beliefs and practices.
Currently available as part of the expensive Esther Williams Collection 2 DVD set