Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966)

The only thing that spoils this film, is the soundtrack. I'd say it's a better film than Blue Hawaii (this is understandably nicknamed Blue Hawaii 2) if it had been recorded the other way round (before the "mundane movie formula" had kicked in) and had the songs from "Blue Hawaii" (half of which weren't great themselves anyway) THIS could easily have been Elvis Presley's highest grossing film of his lifetime instead of it's Hawaiian predecessor. English beauty Suzanna Leigh plays the leading "Elvis Girl" in this Movie...what a fabulous figure!! 9 year old Donna Butterworth is arguably the most memorable female in the movie however, with a series of scene stealing performances that makes it hard to understand how this was her final film. She sings two songs with Elvis - the silly "Queenie Wahini's Papaya" and the tongue in cheek "Datin'" as well as a number of her own at a party. Elvis plays out of work pilot Rick Richards (sounds more like a Nascar driver!) who sets up a helicopter tourist business with his pal Danny Kohana (little Donna's dad) and digs himself into a hole by loaning funds to back his business from a bevvie of beauties he'd fled from 2 years earlier. Like most Elvis movies - it's enjoyable. Silly but enjoyable entertainment, never likely to win awards, get nominated for awards or even top anybody's "favourite film" lists, but sometimes it's good - especially for Elvis fans - to just sit back, enjoy some easy entertaining viewing. These films might have been panned in their day - even by the man himself - but now it's great to have so much visual footage of The King singing, talking, romancing, joking and fighting, even though this is the movie where for the first time it looks apparent that Elvis had grown tired of Hollywood and his dreams of being a "serious movie star". His previous few movies had been particularly soft, and heavily criticised and mocked and Elvis doesn't look as good as he had even 6 months earlier in "Harum Scarum" (a trend and a look that would continue over into his next few films, most notably "Clambake").

his box office was clearly slipping..so it was ..back to Hawaii..and recovered fame and fortune like with BLUE HAWAII and GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS. not really.except for a couple of awful songs esp. written for the movie, the soundtrack is good, although the best song ("Sand Castles") was used only on vinyl! > in fact, the soundtrack album was shockingly well produced! how did that happen? guess we can say something good did come out of this mess.nice touch that a real local celebrity, the young Donna Butterworth, got to act and sing with Elvis and they have a nice chemistry. but that should send up the proverbial red flag...this ain't gonna be a serious drama or groovy comedy with Presley but yet another, light hearted romp, where Elvis dodges aggressive chicks and finds solace in entertaining a kid.storyline is okay..Elvis has shifted from boats and cars to helicopters. but he is overweight and obviously disgusted. the noticeable gut on his short-sleeved aviation shirt and black house paint on his sprayed coiff make him look anything but cool.not worth it even for deep fans. how much money did Hal Wallis waste on this? who knows? instead of making a great drama with 3 songs, with Elvis doing karate and anything he wanted to do, it was business as usual. let's assume he *lost* fans with this.

I have never commented on Elvis Presley although I like his musical style now more than ever compared to the loud hysterical noise we have today. I saw this movie yesterday on AMC TV and by golly it was a good entertaining movie, songs were good, the thin story line was decent, and the Hawaii scenery beautiful and gorgeous; what a backdrop for any musical! Elvis was the only famous character in it, but it was so enjoyable, I could see it again! I thought Elvis was good also in that movie "Love Me Tender", but all the others were just so-so.

This has to be one of the top 5 worst Elvis movies ever made. Not only is Elvis overweight and has obviously lost interest in movies (who can clame him?) but the supporting cast stinks and so does the plot. Blue Hawaii II, it is not. This movie is not even close to the caliber of Blue Hawaii.What were the producers thinking? The one saving grace of this movie is that the scenery was very well photographed. This is another movie to avoid unless you are desperately trying to fall asleep.