Producer: David O. Selznick. Copyright 20 August 1932 by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Mayfair: 9 September 1932. Los Angeles opening at the Orpheum: 2 September 1932. London opening at the New Gallery: 10 January 1933. 9 reels. 80 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Comparisons with Tabu (1951) are obvious. Instead of a native in love with a tabu maiden, substitute a white man. However, the comparison is a bit unjust as Tabu has rung the principal change on the 1912 stage play. NOTES: The stage play opened on Broadway at Daly's on 8 January 1912 and although it ran only a moderately successful 112 performances in New York with the legendary Laurette Taylor in the lead (playing opposite Lewis Stone, no less), it became a big hit throughout the USA and Canada in road and stock companies. The film was re-made as Tabu in 1951 by 20th Century-Fox with Debra Paget, Louis Jourdan and Jeff Chandler. COMMENT: Frankly, I prefer Tabu, but there are many people who regard this version of the story as the more entertaining. Certainly it has a lot going for it, including the splendidly exotic Dolores Del Rio as the native girl and my favorite movie philosopher John Halliday as the worldly-wise yachtsman. "Looks like you'll have to run for native prince," he advises deck-hand McCrea. "On the Democratic ticket!" The photography, however (at least in the print under review), leaves a lot to be desired. Some of the location material is far too dark. The much-vaunted Max Steiner music score also falls short by comparison with Tabu.

The story told in 'Bird of Paradise' is simple and somewhat of a cliché – a white sailor (Joel McCrea) falls in love with a native woman (Dolores del Rio) on a tropical island, but their romance is forbidden, and they must flee to be together. This "white man / native woman" romance would spawn a number of similar movies over the following decades, and this one has the added drama that del Rio is meant to be sacrificed into a volcano to appease Pele.Despite the simple story and some stereotypical treatment of native cultures, this is a highly entertaining movie. It's very well done, as McCrea and del Rio ooze natural sex appeal, and the cinematography in Hawaii is gorgeous. There are hula and other tribal dances which were choreographed by Busby Berkeley, and a beautiful score from Max Steiner. Director King Vidor also took full advantage of what was permissible pre-Code. We see a lot of skin, playful attraction and kissing, and a nude underwater scene two years before a similar one would appear in 'Tarzan and His Mate'. (And interestingly enough, there is also a Tarzan-like yell, and this was in the same year as the first 'Tarzan'). Dolores del Rio is beautiful and alluring in this movie, and her scenes with McCrea are charged with eroticism. I loved some of the special effects as well – the movie has a pretty cool whirlpool scene, lava flow, and of course, the volcano. I suppose this movie and others like it are based on male fantasy, but if you're OK with that, this one really delivers.

"Bird of paradise" (1932) directed by King Vidor represents an anthropological islet in his extensive cinematographer kind of a tree is a tree free speech about species, yet in a second class civilization for South sea adventure. Whose main characters of a sailor and a local flower power, before its female expansion isn't enough for the intriguing father from the clan. This is old green valley in present times, but with an enchantment that for us is still with an accented galvanization for marriage between cultures and how being careful with prejudice, trade and palms like in the time of Cook travel, linked with affection for the nature and brigandage. The geography of this well populated island it is the main fortified part of this exotic story and the plot works with a sense of orientation from the main characters. Being pursued by a group of natives at the orders of the chief, whilst the other small group is composed by the adventurer, the lover girl - daughter of the chief - and their supporters. This is why this movie is astonishingly new for the age it must have now since the time that it was made, as almost like a special one artisan's outfit of the patronized conception of the innovative studios production. Even the eroticism of some scenes with the naked shoulders of the girl, it were very unusual and as fresh current of open air from the concealed forests of the island, near the sands of the shores with palms and beaches, as rarely we could see at the time of mingled forced marriages. Well, Vidor put the finger on the incomprehension and gives us some speed and strength, as dramatic lightening for communication between peoples before electrification, when things were still for the worst after the debacle of illusions. One of the scenes that touch me is when the communication is difficult, because the separate languages and for explaining how it works on a given plan it was by signs, like pictorial symbols at the age of caverns and tattoos, what get feelings between inhabitants and the maritime foreigner in spite of a potential love affair, that took the island in fire and tears, if the good mind and presence of spirit facing differences was not in the right place, as it were by the story among main characters, such in this scene of transition. This is the kind of narrative that shows us the boundaries of forced integration and it seems, even now, the immense complex problem that at the time was the idea of a savage with bow and arrow pointed to a civilized man, half naked on the ground in a warrior ritual, with a local tribe crying against the intrusion of this human kind in their closed rules. Perturbing the primitive life there without any ceremony and knowing nothing about why he was caught, in his own trap of curiosity and observation of that recurred society of consumption, where flesh it was good enough for its smell on the fire by night, as sacrifice calming the volcano eruption, watched from not far away over the night during this cannibalistic ritual, simulating an exchange in such a disconnected mentalities. Director King Vidor makes it by generosity of a new dramatic standing, for showing here boundaries in the spirit of hunters. When things are reversed on the habitat of such a melodic structure, about the childhood of common humanity, in a talkie movie that roars well with choreography of such a dance with naked feet, learning the virtues of housing above water.

As I watched this on PBS I imagined my grandfather spending his twenty cents to watch in the theater. Romance and passion in the tropical sea breeze. A sea adventurer(Joel McCrea) falls in love with an island beauty(Dolores del Rio)who's destiny is to be sacrificed to Pele, the God of Volcanos. Of note: del Rio's nude underwater swimming scene. And Max Steiner's score is the first to orchestrate a "talkie" from beginning to end. The supporting cast includes: Richard Gallagher, John Halliday, Reginald Simpson and Lon Chaney Jr.