I saw this film in the theater when it was first issued. I was 14. I sat through it twice. I became aware that I was not looking at what my friends were looking at. This film cemented my gradually-growing awareness that I was gay. Louis Jourdan was my first teen-age crush.
Much of this film's portrayal of Polynesian culture is authentic and was carefully researched. The "common house" and the fire walk are two examples. But because scholarly research gets embedded here in such an unbelievable story, the film's central message of cross-cultural universality gets seriously diluted. So much more could have been done with the cultural background available. Paget is wooden throughout; her dancing is awful. Chandler's discomfort with his role may well have stemmed from the fact that he was gay in real life and spends much of his screen time in shots together with Jourdan in which both have very little on. Jourdan has little to do but look absolutely gorgeous, a skill at which he shines in every film he made.
Yet this film has much to recommend it. I have enjoyed watching it again tremendously after all these years.
Much of this film's portrayal of Polynesian culture is authentic and was carefully researched. The "common house" and the fire walk are two examples. But because scholarly research gets embedded here in such an unbelievable story, the film's central message of cross-cultural universality gets seriously diluted. So much more could have been done with the cultural background available. Paget is wooden throughout; her dancing is awful. Chandler's discomfort with his role may well have stemmed from the fact that he was gay in real life and spends much of his screen time in shots together with Jourdan in which both have very little on. Jourdan has little to do but look absolutely gorgeous, a skill at which he shines in every film he made.
Yet this film has much to recommend it. I have enjoyed watching it again tremendously after all these years.