Bird of Paradise (1932). 80 minutes. Directed by King Vidor. Starring Dolores Del Río (as Luana), Joel McCrea (as Johnny Baker), John Halliday (as Mac), Richard “Skeets” Gallagher (as Chester), Bert Roach (as Hector), Lon Chaney Jr. (as Thornton), Wade Boteler (as Skipper Johnson), Napoleon Pukui (as the King), Agostino Borgato (as medicine man), and Sofia Ortega (as native woman).
Bird of Paradise is a pre-Code tropical romance that buzzes with as much sex on the beach as a cocktail bar on ladies’ night. The movie follows the story of Johnny, an American yachtsman who disembarks for a month on an island in the Pacific so that he can pant and drool over Luana, a young native woman who can barely speak English. Bird of Paradise holds together by virtue of its layers of fantasy, both sexual fantasy and the fantasy of “going native,” the latter of which Johnny attempts to realize on the island with only minor success. It
