Bird of Paradise (1932)

One really couldn't ask for more than hunky Joel MCrea and gorgeous Delores del Rio as eye candy in "Bird of Paradise," a 1932 film - which makes it precode and quite sexy. McCrea plays a young man on a yachting trip who is saved from a shark by a South seas beauty named Luana; he decides to stay on awhile. When it becomes clear to him that she is to be sacrificed to the volcano Pele, the two escape to an island, where they lead an idyllic life together. Eventually his friends return for him, and he assumes Luana will go with him.Not a huge amount of dialogue, but lots to look at in this King Vidor film, which has jungle choreography by Busby Berkley and music by Max Steiner, both pre-Warner Brothers. Del Rio doesn't wear much; in fact, she has a nude swimming scene. McCrea here is very athletic.Amazing what they were able to do precode that in a couple of years would be taboo. Worth seeing. Del Rio was one of the most beautiful stars ever, and McCrea one of the most appealing.

While the plot of this film may seem trite to us today, it was fresh and original in 1932 when it was made. This may well have been the first "throw the girl into the volcano" movie. Considering the technical limitations of film-making in 1932, the photography and special effects are quite good: the whirlpool, the erupting volcano and the river of lava.Contradicting other postings to this website, I did not see a "rape" scene. What I saw was the male lead chase the female lead after she had been teasing him, then he wrestled her and pinned her down to introduce her to Western-style kissing. A rapist doesn't kiss his victim, and a rape victim would not want her attacker to continue kissing her.The action of the plot moves quickly and is never bogged down by the dialog. This is an entertaining film, which you could view as you would any antique: it's charming for the era in which it was created.

This was a scandalous picture for 1932, an interracial romance with a nude Dolores Del Rio. Bird of Paradise has Del Rio as the daughter of the chief of a South Sea Island where a schooner lands that has Joel McCrea in the crew. McCrea has left the Depression ridden USA behind and now wants to stay on the island. He's decided to see if all the stories are true about the hedonistic natives. What he doesn't bargain for is falling for Del Rio. But she being the daughter of the head guy is spoken for. Nevertheless they elope in a manner of speaking and start kanoodling on another island. You can see why this film was such a big hit that year. With so many young men out of work, who wouldn't want to take off to the South Seas as Joel McCrea did? I say young men because women for the most part were not considered part of the work force.I think the problem later on with this film after the Code came in was not the alleged nudity, you can't tell in any event. Both McCrea and Del Rio spend a lot of time in various stages of undress. Nor is it the interracial romance, Dorothy Lamour later carried on with a lot of anglo visitors in the South Seas with the Code in place. I think the real problem is that the film in its way respects the animist traditions of the native religion. They worship the volcano on that island and no missionaries are around to tell them different. After 1935 you would NEVER see Del Rio making ready to throw herself in the volcano to save her man and his friends. And this is in fact accepted. I'm sure Joel must have wished the missionaries had been there and had converted the natives.Bird of Paradise is dated, but still moderately entertaining.

Bird of Paradise must have been made to cash in on the success of Tabu, as well as the appetite the first of Weismuller's Tarzan movies stirred up for all things jungle (see Joel Macrea in a loincloth, swinging from tree to tree!). It's just as full of the era's embarrassing casual racism, in both dialog and the characterization of South Sea Island "natives." But King Vidor was the director, and together with his crew put together a beautiful visual piece that includes one fabulously erotic sequence. Toward the end [POSSIBLE SPOILER] Macrea's sailor is lying sick back in the ship's cabin. The chieftain's daughter (Del Rio) comes in and revives him by cupping her hands in water and letting it run into his mouth. In a VERY closeup shot, observe the quietly passionate expression on Del Rio's face. Just as he revives, she leaves the cabin to meet her fate.Hollywood wouldn't dare to infuse this much eroticism into an interracial relationship again for many years. Of course, the story here is pretty hackneyed: the "native" maiden's doomed discovery of love and her own otherness in the presence of the white man. But movies are about sight and sound, and such cliches become compelling when outstanding filmmakers are at work. In retrospect, it's easy to see why Del Rio fell out of favor after the Code came in: The Code was as much about race as about sex, and Del Rio's mere presence as a (light) brown-skinned woman in such a scenario was just too dubious, no matter how well-clothed she might be. Henceforth, we would get Dorothy Lamour in a sarong instead of the actress who Orson Welles called the most beautiful in the world. Back to Mexico she went.