South Seas paradise

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Movie
German title South Seas paradise
Original title Paradise, Hawaiian style
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1966
length 91 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Michael D. Moore
script Allan Weiss ,
Anthony Lawrence
production Hal B. Wallis
for Hal Wallis Productions
music Joseph J. Lilley
camera W. Wallace Kelley
cut Warren Low
occupation

South Seas Paradise is an American musical film directed by Michael D. Moore from 1966. It was the 21st film in which Elvis Presley played a role.

action

Pilot Rick Richards is fired from his airline for flirting with a young woman at work. He flies to Hawaii to vacation with his friend Danny and look for a new job. Danny now has five children and is busy making money for the family. He doesn't have a job for Rick. He soon had the idea of ​​founding his own small airline in Hawaii. It is intended to show tourists the unknown areas of the islands.

In order to implement his project, in addition to money, he primarily needs his persuasion skills. He visits his numerous ex-girlfriends, who live scattered around the island and mostly work in hotels, and asks them to advertise his new project to their customers. Danny also soon shows interest and invests a large sum in the joint company, whose fleet consists of two helicopters . Danny hires young Judy, whom he claims to be a married woman, as secretary. This should make it easier for Rick to concentrate on his work.

The first job is transporting several rich lady dogs from one hotel to the next. Since the dogs are not allowed to be locked in cages, they cause utter chaos during the flight. Rick finds it difficult to keep the helicopter on course and so he almost brushes against Mr. Belden's car, who works for the regional air surveillance association. Now the recently founded company is threatened with the withdrawal of its flight license .

While Danny goes to see Mr. Belden to prevent the worst, Rick takes on another job. He's supposed to pick up a couple at Hanalei. Together with Danny's daughter Jan, who actually wanted to go on a trip with her father, he flies to Hanalei. There Rick meets his ex-girlfriend Lani, who drives with him and Jan to Moonlight Beach because the couple will not be picked up for several hours. Lani had actually hoped to be alone with Rick. But when he keeps pointing out that he will have to fly to Hanalei again soon because of the job, Lani hides the helicopter's starting key in the sand. The joke turns serious when she can't find the key. In the end, all three have to spend the night on the beach, looking for the key and only finding it the next morning. Almost at the same time, the angry Danny lands in his helicopter on the beach and terminates the partnership with the supposedly irresponsible Rick - he believes that Rick only wanted to spend one night with his girlfriend, hid the key himself and accepted that Danny and his wife would become one another are very worried about their daughter Jan. Danny takes Jan with him in the helicopter.

When Rick comes back to the office later, Judy tells him that Danny isn't back yet. He just wanted to refuel, but that was several hours ago. Rick, whose license to fly was revoked in writing by Mr. Belden, flies off with Judy anyway to look for Danny and Jan. He finally finds both. Danny had to make an emergency landing in his helicopter and broke his leg in a subsequent fall. He's going to the hospital.

A party takes place a little later. Rick manages to reconcile Mr. Belden. He will be on his side in advising the regional air surveillance association. When Danny Rick finally wants to confess that Judy is not even married, Rick explains that he knew that from the start. He recognizes unmarried women at first sight. Before he can kiss Judy, however, he is pulled away by the singers and dancers of the festival and now appears as a singer himself.

production

The shooting for South Seas Paradise took place from August 5th to August 18th 1965 in Hawaii . Filming locations included the Maui Sheraton Hotel on Maui , the Kona coast and the Hanalei Plantation Resort on Kaua'i . The recordings were made at Torrance Airport in Torrance and the interior recordings at Paramount Studios until September 30th . Between filming in Hawaii and in the studio, Elvis Presley stayed at his home in Bel Air . The Beatles' only visit to Elvis Presley took place here on August 27, 1965 .

Hal Wallis initially offered the female lead to the German actress Christiane Schmidtmer , who had already worked as Lufthansa stewardess Lise Bruner in his Boeing-Boeing production. However, she refused and left the role to her film colleague Suzanna Leigh, who also played a stewardess in Boeing-Boeing .

The film premiered on June 9, 1966 in Memphis in a sneak preview in front of a small audience , had its official premiere a week later in New York City and finally came to the US on July 6, 1966 and in the United States on December 23, 1966 the German cinemas. In the German version, Elvis Presley was dubbed by Rainer Brandt .

To Blue Hawaii and Girls! Girls! Girls! was South Sea paradise of the third and last Elvis movie that played in Hawaii.

In the film, Elvis Presley sings several songs:

  • Paradise, Hawaiian Style (Bill Giant, Bernie Baum & Florence Kaye)
  • Stop Where You Are (Bill Giant, Bernie Baum & Florence Kaye)
  • This Is My Heaven (Bill Giant, Bernie Baum & Florence Kaye)
  • House of Sand (Bill Giant, Bernie Baum, Florence Kaye)
  • Drums of the Islands (Sid Tepper & Roy C. Bennett)
  • A Dog's Life (Sid Wayne & Ben Weisman)

Elvis Presley sings the song Scratch My Back (Then I'll Scratch Yours) with Marianna Hill . Donna Butterworth, nine at the time, sings Bill Bailey, Won't You Please Come Home . Butterworth sings Datin ' and Queen Wahine's Papaya with Elvis Presley .

The Elvis title Sand Castles was cut from the premiere version. However, the title has now been re-used in television versions.

criticism

The film service wrote in 1967:

“Elvis Presley, the fading American mass idol of the fifties, relies on the loyalty of his ex-admirers with this hula-hula movie. This calculation may work out in the USA, in this country one no longer takes it entirely from the pop singer, who has meanwhile become a very fat twenties, if, according to the script, the most beautiful girls of all races throw themselves on his chest. This alleged suggestive power of the hip-wiggling Elvis and his latest hits are consequently a weak-legged framework on which a mixture of colorful tourist Hawaii, dance and operetta action should be held. [...] Only the friends of the Presley-Schlager get their money's worth, although of course they have to put up with hard dry stretches of scanty action (with the exception of some good aerial shots). "

- film service, 1967

"The meaningless story serves to present hits by Elvis Presley," said the Lexicon of International Films published by film-dienst in 1990 .

Cinema described the film as “a musical romance with Elvis Presley, who, however, was already past his best days here. [...] Conclusion: A tough number even for Elvis fans. "

Time Out London saw South Seas Paradise as a desperate attempt to restart Elvis Presley's ailing film career. "The film shows hopelessly bad an annoyed, pot-bellied Elvis trotting through well-known locations, against the background of which boring squabbles take place among young people."

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See movies.elvispresley.com.au
  2. ↑ en: South Seas Paradise . In: film-dienst, No. 3, 1967.
  3. ↑ Klaus Brüne (Ed.): Lexicon of International Films . Volume 7. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1990, p. 3654.
  4. ↑ See cinema.de
  5. ↑ Irredeemably awful, it displays an enervated, paunchy Elvis ambling through familiar locations against which dreary adolescent tiffs are played out. See timeout.com