Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

the audience applauded

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

A bunch of men on a yacht stop off at a Polynesian island, where Johnny and Luana fall in love. The rest of the men leave, but Johnny stays behind. He absconds with Luana, and they find an island paradise to shack up on.But she is destined to be a virgin sacrifice for the Volcano God, and when it starts to erupt, the natives find her and bring her back. Johnny tries to rescue her, but he becomes part of the sacrifice. He tells Luana there is only one true God, to whom he says the Lord's Prayer. The sailors return and rescue them, but Luana voluntarily returns to be fed to the volcano. So, the Christian God loses out to the Volcano God, who gets his sacrifice.She is not a virgin anymore, but what the Volcano God doesn't know won't hurt him.

I think this must be one of the finest films I have ever seen and even as old as it is it leaves todays movies in ruins with its genuinity and simple uncomplicated plot. As mentioned Joel Macrae falls in love with the absolutely gorgeous Dolores Del Rio and the cultures end up dividing them in the end. It showed to me how civilized man wants to have his island love but then would like to take her back to civilization and what for. He would not have what he fell in love with. Simple Island life take it or leave it but don't try and get her back to another world she would never understand or appreciate. Very erotic kissing scene as islanders rub noses he kisses her and the actions lend to the imagination of what is really intended but all just a great film with lots of entertaining dancing music and island culture before the missionaries came and ruined it all to their puritanical ideals

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 taboo—and, 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-makers—consider 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 life—the 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.

This film is a good example of Pre-Code Hollywood Essentially the story of a sailor who falls in love with a native girl, this film has numerous examples of how Hollywood flourished before the production code set in some 3 years later. In most of the film Dolores Del Rio runs around in a straw skirt with nothing but a lei covering her breasts. In scenes where she is swimming, she appears to be totally nude with just some distortion in the water keeping us from seeing her totally naked. Also co-star Joel McCrea spends a good deal of the film walking around in his bathing suit.The love scenes between McCrea and Del Rio vary. The first time it looks like rape, and Del Rio looks like she is visibly in pain. 3 years later the production code would not permit a white man to wed or be romantically involved with anyone but a white woman.Among the crew of the ship is Richard "Skeets" Gallagher, who plays a stereotypically gay role, along with another sailor on the ship.This film is now in the public domain and can frequently be found on television, and is available on DVD.