Yet another South-Sea Island romance, with all the usual trappings. A handsome white man, Johnny (Joel McRea) is sweet on a beautiful island maiden, Luana (Dolores del Rio), and elects to stay on the island while his sailing chums go off for a while. Luana, however, is the king's daughter and is thus tabooand, moreover, she seems to be destined to be a sacrifice to the volcano god Pele. Johnny steals her away, and they have an idyll on a nice island where he builds a house and she spears fish and learns English. But when the volcano erupts, they come for her. Johnny attempts another rescue but is wounded and bound on a frame, as is Luana, for transporting to the sacrifice. She starts to pray to Pele, but Johnny says, "There's only one god," and starts to pray the "Lord's Prayer." Providentially saved by the returning crew with their pistols, the couple go aboard the ship; Johnny is burning up with a fever from his wound and Luana is frantic that Pele's curse will kill him, so she goes back with her people. Just before she returns, she gives Johnny some orange juice, first sucking it from one end and then wetting his mouth with kisses, sadly, gravely. It's a sweet moment. The romance is mostly formulaic otherwise, and the plot doesn't offer any reason for their relationship than eyebeams and physical attraction. McRea is handsome and well-muscled, and the Latina del Rio can stand in for any 'exotic" race or people. She is quite pretty, and swims in the nude (this is a pre-Code movie) with some striking underwater photography, and she wears very little much of the time. Magically her leis cling to her breasts even when she leans forward, so there is no full frontal exposure. del Rio has beautiful eyes, well-made-up in the Hollywood (not Polynesian) style. For most of the film Luana and Johnny can't understand each other's language, but they talk anyway, and it's significant that Johnny, blind to the fact that they're in paradise (a caption or intertitle even tells us so), keeps talking about "civilization." He, like most of the American crew, assume the vast superiority of their culture, an assumption shared by the writers and film-makersconsider the crudeness of the representation of the "superstitions" of these "primitive" people. And Johnny assumes Luana will be charmed to leave this world and assimilate into his. But because she loves him, she is willing to die, and does so. The film ends with a montage of Luana in ceremonial dress, her face, the smoking volcano, and flames, as the music (rather nice, mostly, and vaguely Polynesian) swells to "The End." Perhaps this ending avoids the problem of whether a "Native Girl" could ever fit into Johnny's stateside lifethe crew shake their heads, muttering "East is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet." Or perhaps it's really a romantic tragedy, featuring a mixture of bad luck and selfless heroism on her part.
Review of Bird of Paradise
