Surprisingly incoherent and boring

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Director: WALTER LANG. Screenplay: Joseph Schrank and Robert Pirosh, Robert Ellis and Helen Logan. Photographed in Color by Technicolor by Ernest Palmer. Film editor: Rby Simpson. Art directors: Richard Day, Joseph C. Wright. Set decorator: Thomas Little. Costumes designed by Gwen Wakeling. Make-up: Guy Pearce. 2nd unit director: Orro Brower. Technicolor color consultant: Natalie Kalmus. Associate Technicolor consultant: Morgan Padelford. Technical director: Hilo Hattie. Assistant directors: Bernard Carr, Fred Fox (2nd unit). Sound recording: E. Clayton Ward, Roger Heman. Producer: William LeBaron.Songs by Mack Gordon (lyrics) and Harry Owens (music): "Blue Shadows and White Gardenias" (Grable); "O'Brien Has Gone Hawaiian" (Grable); "Sing Me a Song of the Islands" (Grable, Hattie); "Down On Ami Ami Oni Oni Isle" (Grable, Hattie); "What's Buzzin', Cousin" (Oakie); "Hawaiian Drinking Song" (Hattie). Choreographer: Hermes Pan. Music director: Alfred Newman. Copyright 13 March 1942 by 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation. New York opening at the Roxy: 11 March 1942. U.S. release: 13 March 1942. Australian release: 4 November 1943 (sic). 6,716 feet. 74 minutes.SYNOPSIS: Tycoon's son falls for beachcomber's pretty daughter. COMMENT: Everyone knows that 20th Century-Fox had the best sound department in the business. Everyone, that is, except the industry's own sound supervisors, technicians and engineers. How often did Fox carry off Hollywood's most prestigious annual award for Sound Recording in the golden years from 1929 to 1976? Just eight times, would you believe? Wilson (1944), The Snake Pit (1948), Twelve O'Clock High (1949), All About Eve (1950), The King and I (1956), The Sound of Music (1965), Hello, Dolly! (1969), and Patton (1970).You'd never learn from this list that it was actually in musicals of the 1930s and 1940s that Fox's sound department really excelled. Take 1942, for example, a good year because each studio was able to nominate one movie. What was the Fox selection? "This Above All"!Okay, so in addition to its magnificent sound track, what does "Song of the Islands" have to recommend it? Nothing much except sprightly performances (even Victor Mature is quite personable), a witty script, catchy tunes, lavish production values and gorgeous Technicolor.What more do you want? Free admissions would be nice, but we've got that now with TV. Admittedly, we pay for it by sitting through myriads of dastardly advertisements, but you can't have everything!

Enjoyable 1942 film with Bette Grable and Victor Mature in Hawaii. Son of a wealthy scion, Mature falls for Grable while he is trying to get her father, a wonderful Thomas Mitchell, to sell his father, George Barbier, land. The relationship between the two elders is terrific of one of hostility then amiability until a fast working executive tries to evict Mitchell from the land for non-payment of taxes.Jack Oakie steals the show as Mature's sidekick. Hilo Hattie, as the Hawaiian woman who has designs on Oakie, belts out those Hawaiian songs and acts as a Jewish mother by constantly feeding Oakie.The songs of Hawaiian and American style are great and it's too bad that the film was just an hour and eighteen minutes.

I never thought that this was one of the better Grable pictures and as I am taking a break from re-watching it for the first time in a decade I still hold to that original opinion.The film has, if possible, too many character actors - Thomas Mitchell, George Barbier, Jack Oakie, Billy Gilbert, Hilo Hattie. And there is too much bickering.OTOH, most of the songs are very tuneful, though undistinguished and the Technicolor is, as always, eye-popping.The high points in the film are almost all Grable. If the film had been destroyed after the first reel, it likely would not have mattered because Grable's absolutely gorgeous entry into the film on a small outrigger just off shore of a tropical is breathtaking as is her brilliantly pretty face and figure.And what a figure! All curves and plenty of them, looking delicious in clingy island dresses and hula girl out-fits. What a bundle! 5'4" (As I thought when looking at her while danced barefoot) and she measured in at 34 1/2-24-36 (self-described 1940).She is singing "Sing Me a Song of the Islands" as she heads towards shore with her blonde hair blowing gently in the breeze as she softly offers the song in that vastly under-rated melodious and well modulated beguiling voice of hers. She's radiant with gleaming white teeth and big eyes as she sings the entire song in 90 seconds with the big Technicolor camera slowly zooms in from a medium shot to what becomes a near full lose up if her expressive face, never once breaking away...all in one shot.I had a customer in my video store about 15 years ago who had not seen Song of the Islands since its original release in 1942 and all he remembered all those years was that opening shot of Betty Grable, her hair blowing in the tropical breeze and singing "Sing Me a Song of the Islands". Movie magic! Victor Mature is in the film, too. He looks fine.Hilo Hattie is the Hawaiian version of Charlotte Greenwood in the film; man hungry and doing her eccentric dances and songs.As mention, it is not one of the 'great Grables' of the era, in spite of having the talented Walter Lang, who had directed some of Grable's best films in the 1940.Unfortunately, what ever momentum the film has fairly comes to a halt about 50 minutes into the picture at which time there is little question (if there was ever any) about how the film will wrap up. The pictures weakest tunes are trotted out and Grable's last dance sequence is far from memorable.Jack Oakie, playing Mature's sidekick (and only 39 years old at the time) manages to squeeze in a song and a romance for himself with a pretty island girl even younger than Grable and he and Hilo Hattie have the last laugh in the film. (Oakie frequently seems to get a special moment at the end of the films he is in. He had a big following and was extremely popular with everyone.) All in all...very lightweight stuff. Nice try by all involved. There's better Grables out there.Now I'll go back and rewind the tape and watch that opening island sequence one more time. It's a freeze-framers delight!

Great 1940s World War II Pacific island fantasy movie. The colors are so bright they almost can't be real. Victor Mature and Jack Oakie head to an island where Betty Grable lives in tropic splendor with her father (Thomas Mitchell - Gerald O'Hara from "Gone With The Wind", same Irish accent too by the way...). The music is just fantastic, Harry Owens and his orchestra are incredible, the classic Hula Comedienne Hilo Hattie is on hand as Palola to provide comic relief in her attempts to land Jack Oakie (Jack is afraid of Palola's Cannibal uncle however...). Gloriously non-politically correct in the way that only classic movies can be. Betty Grable in a grass skirt, (wow!) no wonder all the G. I. s you speak to from that time were crazy about her!